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The Advocate.

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

The second number of the Advocate is on the whole a very creditable issue, although two or three of the contributions do not rise above mediocrity. The editorials discuss a wide variety of subjects, among which the principal are, - the captain of the 'varsity crew, Mr. Lathrop's work, the foot ball team, and the glee club trip, - the latter two being the most strongly written.

Under "Topics of the Day," discussion is given to "Bloody Monday Rushes," - a subject to which old Mother Advocate seems to cling with an undiminished pertinacity, - and "The Conditions of College Success." The latter is full of common sense and the key-note of the whole is struck in the concluding lines of the discussion, "The truest success lies rather in making the most of one's advantages than in attaining a flattering prominence in scholarship, societies, or athletics."

The only fiction of the number, "The Three John Briggses," has a certain originality of conception. It deals with the case of a fellow whose father wished him to go to Yale and who got out of the difficulty by sending a substitute to Yale and going himself to Harvard. His father visits him at the critical time of a Harvard-Princeton game, discovers the deception, but shows the usual leniency. Much of the action of the story is very natural, but there are one or two slips of construction and word-improprieties which are the effect of the whole.

Perhaps the cleverest bit of prose in the number is W. F. B.'s "Tatler Paper" after Sir Richard Steele. Its author has reproduced Steele's style in an admirable manner, and throughout the whole there is charming vivaciousness of touch. The appended verses show a commendable delicacy.

"Jim Saunder's Reward" is a tale of pure pathos, fairly well written. There is a little too much tendency, however, "to force the well-springs of our pity," as Lang puts it.

"Desolate" is another pathetic bit of word-sketching, and "A Satire" is an excellent piece of dramatic description.

The college Kodaks are not so interesting as those of last time, taken as a whole, although the first and the fifth are extremely good in their way, the latter showing an unusual strength of diction.

Of the verse of the number, the "Ballade of the White Ship" is by far the best. It has the exactness of metrical construction which this form of verse demands. This theme - the loss of the White Ship - is one which poets have often treated, but its author has succeeded in imparting to it some originality of description, - although there are several traces of Swinburne in it.

"The Skull," a piece of versified description, is rather crude, and "Perdita" is a triolet, utterly lacking in delicacy of turn and expression."

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