"The Harvard Monthly."

The magazine completes its second year with to-day's number, one not much better or worse than the average - indeed the poetry is somewhat below par, though the prose is fully as good as usual.

The graduate article, a dramatic, powerfully written and most instructive dialogue by Mr. Donaldson, is genuinely original, and certainly a perfect description of how men talk, if not, thank heaven, of the way women act. Follow a poem by Mr. De Wolf, Jr. one line of which might be altered for the better: it would read more effectively,

"O'er stumbling paths to be retraced in vain." etc.,

than as it is now worded. Follows an essay on Clough by Miss C. N. Bynner, a new departure this, a most auspicious one on a most auspicious day. Some old Greek has asserted that it was from the perfect style the ladies of Athens commanded in their letters, that attic prose learnt its brilliancy. The ladies of to-day have not degenerated from that standard. The essay, besides being of easy diction, shows much sympathy with the subject of it and some critical acumen. Next comes a very happy account of "The Big Bharata" by Mr. Bruce. He has made the tedious agreeable, and compressed eighty thousand lines into a sentence; indeed, with the exception of his "Catullus" of last year, we do not remember any critical article of his that is better He tells us among other things that by an intricate method of skipping, the "Bharata" may be read in ninety days; what exercise for a novelist! And yet he seems at home in this sea of words and dallies with its pollysyllabic names. The whole epic is compressed into a dozen pages; the fewer the better fare.' A somewhat weak poem in a some what far fetched metre is contributed by Mr. Sanford, and next follows a strong essay, written by Mr. Fletcher, on Zola's "L'Assommoir", sickening subject. The description of the book does it justice. The criticism of it is not quite fair to M. Zola. The French idea of art has been ably expressed and developed by M. Taine, and may be summarized in the words, "Art" is the emphazing one truth out of many, or one feature or manifestations of a complex truth", and M. Zola himself has justified his method. They are, he says, necessary to his purpose, which is the discovery of truth, and that canst and alone. Greek statues would be indecent if at all clothed. Their nudity, however, only shocks the prudes, and to M. Zola his critics have all the frivolous weakness of prudery.

Last, except for the book reviews, is a poem by Mr. Carman, by far the most powerful verse of the number, though to appreciate it a second reading is necessary. Book notices and an editorial complete the number. The new management is to be complimented on this their first issue. Mr. Howe's choice of articles is excellent, and Mr. Bancroft has seen to the clearness of the type.