Chapter 92

6–27707.

Descriptive note in Annual, 1906.

“The impressiveness with which its ethical teaching is enforced is the justification for much that seems at the time intolerable in the presentation.” Wm. M. Payne.

“There is far too much scientific terminology and a rather incredible amount of human perfection, but there is also intellectual breadth and maturity, finely expressed intensity, high moral sensibility.”

Maynadier, Gustavus Howard.Arthur of the English poets. *$1.50. Houghton.

7–15547.

“The purpose of Mr. Maynadier’s book is to trace Arthurian legends to their sources, to tell more fully of their origin and growth, and to keep more closely to English countries than MacCallum had done. The new book has grown from a course of lectures delivered at Harvard university and Radcliffe college in 1900.... The author examines the sources of Arthur’s immense literary fame and sets forth the divergent views of various contemporary scholars. Separate chapters deal with Lancelot, Tristram, and Iseub and the Holy Grail.”—Lit. D.

“For literary students—as distinct from specialists—who wish to gain a good general view of the rise and flourishing of the legend the book will be most useful. The writer is evidently ignorant of the valuable assistance rendered by the Welsh hagiology in estimating the various elements which went to the formation of the wonderful story of the Graal.”

“Dr. Maynadier’s treatment of his subject is most scholarly and sympathetic, and nowhere is it more so than in his discussion of Tennyson’s presentation in modern form of this old world legend.”

“Despite some few errors, is the best popular account in the language of the growth and vicissitudes of the Arthurian legend, particularly with reference to its earlier development.”

“It is in general a work of original research, and is a contribution of value to one of the most interesting departments of English literature.”

“The book, taken as a whole, is one of decided value. It is very agreeably written, and has a basis of accurate scholarship.”

“Is the most complete treatment of the origin, development, and history of the Arthurian legends in English poetry that we have.”

“It is not a work of original scholarship, nor of genius living in its princely fashion upon other men’s scholarship, but something between,and in its kind admirable. Once or twice we have been surprised by the gaps in Mr. Maynadier’s knowledge ... and by his excessive respect for Tennyson and his misunderstanding of Morris.”

“The work was well worth doing and the author has done it well. No teacher of English can afford to miss reading this delightful book. It is most scholarly in tone and treatment, and sympathetic in a just appreciation.” H. E. Coblentz.

Mayor, Rev. Joseph Bickersteth.Epistle of St. Jude and the Second epistle of St. Peter; Greek text, with introd., notes and comments. *$4.50. Macmillan.

“Professor Mayor’s commentary presents the Greek text of these epistles, abundantly annotated, together with an extended introduction. The propriety of treating these two epistles together is obvious in view of their close literary relationship. Professor Mayor discusses fully the relationship of II Peter to I Peter, concluding, with most scholars, that they are from different hands.”—Bib. World.

“His notes here are marked by sound learning and accurate scholarship.”

Mazzotto, Domenico.Wireless telegraphy and telephony; tr. from the original Italian, by S. R. Bottone. *$2. Macmillan.

6–16742.

“Prof. Mazzotto, a countryman of the inventor Marconi takes up the subject of what is now called radiotelegraphy, and discusses it historically and technically ... and places at the service of both scientific and ordinary readers in clear language all that is known on the subject up to the present.”—N. Y. Times.

“Some of the descriptions remain obscured by somewhat longwinded—and therefore involved—sentences. This defect possibly results from translation.”

“Mr. Bottone’s translation is clear and well done.”

Meade, Richard Kidder.Portland cement; its composition, raw materials, manufacture, testing and analysis. *$3.50. Chemical.

6–32139.

“A book ... which fairly represents to date the American Portland cement industry, as seen from the standpoint of the technical staff.... While the chapters on ‘Proportioning raw material’ and on ‘Analytical methods’ are naturally the strongest in the book ... yet Mr. Meade deals with machinery and processes of manufacture extremely well.”—Engin. N.

“Mr. Meade is to be congratulated on a really notable effort. Undoubtedly the book will be well received by the many people interested in cements, and will occupy a place in cement literature which every body has known was vacant and which should be filled by some one competent for the task.” Frederick H. Lewis.

Meakin, Annette M. B.Russia, travels and studies. *$4. Lippincott.

W 6–316.

“Starting with Rousseau’s view that Naples should be visited in summer and St. Petersburg in winter, Mrs. Meakin makes the Russian capital the starting-point for a literary, if not literal, journey all over the European dominions of the Czar, closing with Kieff and the Caucasus. She gives a great deal of information—historical, topographical, sociological—which is of considerable interest and value.”—Spec.

“Contains much more definite information on a wider range of subjects, than the usual personal narratives of travel.”

“This book is a valuable contribution to the too small list of good books on Russia, because it contains so many first hand observations, put in such a clear and attractive form.” Samuel N. Harper.

“The slips and little errors in the earlier pages are, though unimportant so numerous that we began to suspect the qualifications of the writer for the task undertaken. But we gladly admit that in reading on we found reason to change our view.”

“They are somewhat desultory and discursive, but they contain nothing uninteresting, and they cover fields ordinarily left untouched even in a country so voluminously written of as Russia.” Wallace Rice.

“This volume is an interesting and enlightening narrative of Russia’s many-sided life, by a woman whose investigations have been thorough and discerning.”

“The thing that strikes the reader of Miss Meakin’s ‘Russia’ is a certain inconsequence of matter and style. We know of no popular book in English that deals so fully with the treasures of the Russian monasteries and museums, both public and private. There is a regrettable weakness in the matter of the names of the Russian governments.”

“Every chapter is solid without sacrifice of entertainment. The author rather skillfully avoids the hackneyed.” Cyrus C. Adams.

“We look in vain for a glossary to explain the interesting text in this well printed, illustrated, and mapped book, brimful of little-known facts about Russian towns.”

“The chief charm of this book is that one can take it up at any time and find something, if not positively new, at once informing and non-controversial.”

Meakin, (James Edward) Budgett.Life in Morocco and glimpses beyond.*$3. Dutton.

Descriptive note in Annual, 1906.

Meakin, Walter.Life of an empire. *$1.80. Wessels.

7–38582.

A work whose aim is “to give clear and definite expression to some of the problems which confront the British Empire.... [The author] first traces the growth briefly, with compact and vivid narrative, of the empire from the time of the Romans to the present, presents the salient features of its different parts, discusses the problems and the tendencies of each locality, and in the final chapter considers the necessity of the unity of the empire and how it can be attained.” (N. Y. Times.)

“Mr. Meakin ... displays sound principle and good feeling generally expressed in commonplaces. On many of the grave questions of which he writes at length Mr. Meakin has failed to clear his mind. We find also a goodmany trifling errors which seem to show some deficiency in the equipment of our author.”

“His discussion of the color problem in the different localities of the empire has interest and some practical value for Americans. But when he finds the cause of race hatred in the southern United States to be in the struggle for existence the American reader will begin to feel some doubt as to the keenness of his observation.”

“His book is as flimsy as it is pretentious. His ideas are cosmopolitan, his economics are childish, and his ways of expressing himself would not redound to the credit of a schoolboy essayist.”

Meany, Edmond Stephen.Vancouver’s discovery of Puget Sound: portraits and biographies of the men honored in the naming of geographic features of northwestern America. **$2.50. Macmillan.

7–14804.

The volume deals with the broad general subject of western Canadian discovery, and is based principally upon the second edition of the journal of Captain Vancouver, published in London in 1801. Many interesting portraits supplement the text, and there are biographies of a number of men whose names now appear conspicuously upon the map of the North American continent.

“In the main the work is trustworthy. If the portion of Vancouver’s ‘voyage’ had been faithfully reproduced it would require no comment in this review. But there are numerous errors in copying (changes, omissions, and insertions) which should have been corrected in proof-reading.” William R. Manning.

“It is disappointing to find so much genuine scholarship expended to, comparatively speaking, so little purpose.” Lawrence J. Burpee.

“It would be difficult to exaggerate the interest and charm of these vivid pages, written, as they were, under the spell and inspiration of a new world.”

“This is a valuable contribution to the early history of Puget sound region of the State of Washington.”

“A volume which adds materially to the early history of this continent.”

“A distinctly original and helpful historical monograph, valuable not only for the information it affords concerning Vancouver’s voyage itself and the significance of the names applied to prominent geographical features of the Oregon country, but for the light it throws on the operations of Spain in that region and negotiations which ended in the relinquishment to England of the Spanish territorial claims.”

“A noteworthy addition to the subject of Americana in its largest sense.”

“This volume is of definite historical importance in the literature of geographical biography, and a handsome tribute to the memory of a great Englishman.”

Mears, Mary M.Breath of the runners; a novel. †$1.50. Stokes.

6–37599.

One of the runners is a large-souled, unselfish girl, the other a jealous, narrow-minded, self-constituted rival. Beulah Marcel’s art career from the lowly rounds of a cameo-cutter’s apprentice to the point of distinction as a sculptor is unselfishly subordinated to that of Enid Rahfield spares no effort, good or evil, to win much-coveted fame. The scene shifts from New York to Paris, and at every pause of the runners, the love interest creeps in, and with it, misunderstandings which are fully accounted for at the mention of “artistic temperament.”

“There is much knowledge of the art world, much keen insight into the hearts of men and women, and no small amount of healthful philosophy of life in this unpretentious story.” Frederic Taber Cooper.

“There is something in the youth and freshness, the first poetic outlook upon dawning life, never to be seized a second time, but which permeates ‘The breath of the runners.’” Louise Collier Willcox.

“The characters are unusual and significant, and they are alive. The writer has much to learn in the matter of construction.”

Meline, Jules.Return to the land. *$1.50. Dutton.

7–19755.

Senator Jules Méline, sometime minister of agriculture, President of the representative chamber of France, and Prime Minister, has here given minute and careful instruction on manufacturing and industrial questions in a most interesting manner. “The great object of the book,” says Justin McCarthy in his preface “is to convince the world that the return to the land, and the work that the land still offers in all or most countries, is now the nearest and the surest means for the mitigation or the removal of the troubles which have come on the working populations everywhere, and that the present is the appropriate time for the beginning of such a movement.”

“M. Méline ... is a statesman of the highest rank, who approaches the question in a manner that is at once widely philosophic and highly practical.”

“He is a clear thinker, and presents his arguments in an attractive as well as convincing form. He has graced his pages with artistic, at times almost poetic language, and from cover to cover the book is sure to interest the reader. To many of his conclusions few would give assent. The remedies he proposes are foreign to all our habits of thought. This does not render the argument any the less interesting and thought-provoking.”

“It is not likely that we shall learn much that can bear on the land problems of Great Britain from the leading French Protectionist.”

“Its thorough, though general, and suggestive treatment, promises interesting reading for Americans.”

“Senator Meline discusses most interestingly an interesting thesis, with blemishes in detail which are apart from the merits of the idea.” Edward A. Bradford.

“It is, in fact, in his recommendations, and in his review of the present state of French agriculture, that his work is most valuable, for here, by reason of long experience and thorough study, he is master of his subject.”

“We have much to learn from France, and M. Méline by constantly drawing examples from England makes his book as instructive reading for Englishmen as for his own countrymen.”

*Melville, Lewis, pseud.Farmer George: a study of the life and character of George III.2v. **$7.50. Brentano’s.

“George III.’s home and court life, his relations with his ministers and other prominent persons of his reign are presented. Fully described, too, is the king’s trouble with Wilkes, as well as the attitude of his court and subjects toward the American colonies, from the Stamp act down to the acknowledgment of the United States of America.”—N. Y. Times.

“In their unambitious style Mr. Melville’s pages are readable enough.”

“The book may be popular, and, as it is better that people should know something about George III. than nothing, it will serve a purpose in the libraries.”

Mendelssohn, Felix.Thirty piano compositions; ed. by Percy Goetschius, with a preface by Daniel Gregory Mason. $2.50; pa. $1.50. Ditson.

7–5083.

Uniform with the “Musician’s library.” The volume includes eight “Songs without words,” the Sonata in E major, the Rondo capriccioso, besides various preludes, fugues, studies, etc.

Menpes, Mortimer.Paris; painted by Mortimer Menpes; text by Dorothy Menpes. 24 full-page il. in color and line drawings. *$2. Macmillan.

W 7–110.

Here the reader finds less of the art galleries, churches, and museums than of the “life of Paris, and above all, the joy of the life of Paris.... The streets and boulevards, the cafés and restaurants, the various forms of amusement, the poverty and the picturesqueness of the shiftless and generous students of the Latin Quartier, and many other phases of Parisian existence, are rendered in all their lights and shades with astonishing accuracy.” (Ind.)

“It is a great accomplishment to have caught as much of it all within the pages of one book as the Menpes have done.” May Estelle Cook.

“The ‘Paris’ of Mortimer and Dorothy Menpes may not have much of that practical quality of serviceableness which we look for in a guide, but it has a brilliant impersonal style and will supplement in a very pleasant fashion a work more purely utilitarian. The illustrations in color, as well as those in line, are smooth and harmonious. The former are not glaring, but faithful and delicate, with subtle gradations of tone that are very striking.”

“She writes in a somewhat abrupt style; her series of pictures of Paris life have been jotted down in short, terse sentences, which somehow fail to match the grace and humour that float everywhere in the golden, hazy atmosphere of that city. But her book, with its vivid descriptions, is a pleasant contribution.”

“Miss Menpes takes up various manifestations of Parisian ways of thinking, acting, and living, and manages to invest her subject, hackneyed though it is, with a great deal of freshness and charm. The two dozen full-page illustrations in color, devoted to street scenes and famous buildings, are not equal to the former publications of Mr. Menpes’s work.”

Meredith, Ellis.Under the harrow. †$1.50. Little.

7–12976.

All about three brave hearted girls’ struggles for success on Grub street in the city of New York. There is a touch of pathos in the penury that fills the life of these “attic geniuses;” their little successes, more often reverses, their simple romances, above all their naturalness and love of life are well worth following thru the pages of the story.

“Amusing here and there, but unimportant as a whole.”

“The older generations of readers, who remember Murger’s ‘Scènes de la vie de Bohème’ and Du Maurier’s ‘Trilby,’ will find Mr. Meredith’s little story of Bohemian life in New York insipid and futile but it will not be without interest and encouragement for the younger generation.”

“The story has its good points, but produces an uncomfortable impression at times from the effort of the author to incorporate in it like patchwork all the smart things possible to collect. Many of the patches are incongruous.”

Meredith, Owen, pseud. (Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton).Personal and literary letters of Robert, first earl of Lytton, (Owen Meredith); ed. by Lady Betty Balfour. 2v. *$6. Longmans.

7–26424.

Descriptive note in Annual, 1906.

“The present winter season has produced at least an average crop of biographical works, but none of them, so far as we have seen, can surpass this one for attractiveness and interest.”

“It is a far more touching and interesting record than the biography of many a greater man.” Charles H. A. Wager.

“Considering her object—a picture of the man rather than of his times—Lady Betty Balfour must be congratulated on a model achievement.”

“A very interesting book this, and a very interesting man Lord Lytton, and one who, notwithstanding his distinction as a diplomat, earns our sympathy because of his ungratified ambition in other directions.” Jeannette B. Gilder.

Merejkowski, Dmitri.Peter and Alexis; tr. by Mr. Herbert Trench. $1.50. Putnam.

Descriptive note in Annual, 1906.

“In this last volume of the trilogy the faults of the author’s style become intolerably exaggerated. A lack of symmetry, subordination and clarity seems to be a general fault with Russian literature and doubtless also of their life, for a like confusion and aimlessness appear to characterize their politics.” Edwin E. Slosson.

Merrill, George Perkins.Treatise on rocks, rock-weathering and soils; new ed. rev. throughout. *$4. Macmillan.

6–46275.

“There has been very little attempt to harmonize conflicting views, and almost none at independent interpretation. The pages devoted to rocks and to soils reflect current views rather than suggest new ones. The chapters devoted to rock-weathering are the best in the book, and constitute in the aggregate our most authoritative treatise on this subject.”—Dial.

“The book is especially useful to readers who desire a knowledge of the general facts and principles involved in the study of rocks and their change into soils.”

“Combines a large amount of matter of a purely categorical and descriptive scientific character with an almost equally large amount of matter of interest and value to any wide-awake person wishing to know about the earth on which he lives.”

“Having used it for years, the present reviewer has yet to find it fail him in his classroom needs.”

Merriman, Mansfield.Elements of sanitary engineering. 3d ed. *$2. Wiley.

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