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THE following story, told by Lord Rus sell of Killowen, is quoted by "E. M." in The Law Times: I remember a case in which a very inno cent remark of my own elicited the fact of a previous conviction. A prisoner was ad dressing the jury very effectively on his own behalf, but he spoke in a low voice, and, not hearing some of his observations, 1 said: "What did you say? What was your last sentence?" "Six months, my Lord," he re plied. LITERARY NOTES.

THE two recently-published volumes of Essays Historical and Literary, a by John Fiske, show admirably the charm and ver satility of Dr. Fiske as historian, philosopher and literary critic. The first volume deals with scenes and characters in American his tory, and the material in these nine essays— many of which were delivered as lectures— was intended to be embodied in a projected "History of the American People." The chapters on "Thomas Hutchinson, the Last Royal Governor of Massachusetts," and on "Thomas Jefferson, the Conservative Re former," are especially interesting. The sec ond volume covers a wider range of sub jects, as is indicated by the titles of its ten essays,—for example, "Old and New Ways of Treating History," "John Milton," "Koshchei, the Deathless," and "Herbert Spencer's Service to Religion." It was at the conclusion of this last address, delivered at a banquet to Spencer in New York, in 1882, that Spencer said: "Fiske, should you develop to the fullest the ideas you have ex pressed here this evening1, I should regard it as a fitting supplement to my life work." The frontispiece of the first volume is an excellent photogravure of Dr. Fiske. BISHOP LAWRENCE'S short Life2 of Roger 1 ESSAYS HISTORICAL AND LITERARY. By John Fiske. 1. vols. Cloth. New York : The Macmillan Company. 1902. (422-f- 316 pp.) 2 ROGER WOLCOTT. By William Lawrence. With portrait. Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 1902. Cloth $i net. (238 pp.)

Wolcott is a just and welcome tribute to the memory of Governor Wolcott and a fitting record of his public services. The re spect and admiration which the character of Governor Wolcott aroused in those who, like his present biographer, were his personal friends, were shared very widely by the peo ple of Massachusetts. And when the ability, the honesty, and, hi many instances, the courage with which Roger Wolcott adminis tered the affairs of the Commonwealth is re called, regret is keen that the field in which his public duties were exercised was that of state, and not national, politics. The volume contains five portraits, one taken in childhood, one early in Roger Wolcott's college course, and the others in later life. As in a way, a supplement to The Con queror, of which Alexander Hamilton was the hero, Mrs. Atherton has edited a small but well-chosen collection of Hamilton's let ters. 1 Some of these are familiar, as, for ex ample, his letter to Duane wherein he dis cusses "the defects of our present system" of government, particularly "the fundamen tal defect"—the "want of power in Con gress,"—and the letter to General Schuyler describing the misunderstanding between Washington and Hamilton, then an aide. Extremely interesting are those letters which relate Arnold's treachery and the capture and execution of André. A number of letters to Hamilton are in cluded in this volume; among them one from Colonel Fleury, begging for shoes for his bare-footed command, the postscript to which will bear quoting: "N. B. As his Excellency could form a very advantageous idea of our being lucky in shoes by the appearance of the officers who dined today at headquarters, and were not quite without, I beg you would observe to him, if necessary, that each company had furnished a shoe for their dressing." •A FEW OF HAMILTON'S LETTERS. Including his description of the great West Indian hurricane of 177;. Edited by Gertrude Atherton. With portraits. Cloth; $1.50. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1903.