LI TEL ART NOTICES. 



2 73 



showing, stands charged with 43*7 for every 

 10,000 of its inhabitants. 



Figures like these themselves furnish an 

 impressive sermon. 



The Epic Songs of Russia. By Isabel 

 Florence Hapgood. With an Intro- 

 ductory Note by Professor Francis J. 

 Child. New York: Charles Scribner's 

 Sons. Pp. 359. Price, $2.50. 



What are here called " Epic Songs " are 

 really the folk-songs, or songs of the com- 

 mon people, whose only literary existence 

 is in the form of copies taken down from 

 the mouths of some of the singers, after they 

 have been handed down by oral tradition 

 for, it may be, hundreds of years. Besides 

 the pleasure to be got from the works them- 

 selves as stories and poetry, the perusal of 

 them, as Professor Child says, is well adapt- 

 ed to help to an appreciation of those of our 

 fellow-men who have been educated by tra- 

 dition and not by books, and who, though 

 living on the plainest fare of oats, feel and 

 cherish poetry " not less than those who 

 have been nursed in comfort and schooled 

 in literature." These Russian epics possess 

 a striking distinction from those of Western 

 Europe, in that while the latter passed from 

 the popular mouth to writing during the 

 middle ages, and are no longer to be found 

 except in books, the Russian epics are still 

 living in some districts of the country, and 

 are " even extending into fresh fields " ; and 

 " it is only within the present century 

 within the last twenty-five years, in fact 

 that the discovery has been made that Rus- 

 sia possesses a national literature which is 

 not excelled by the finest of Western Eu- 

 rope." Although one or two small collec- 

 tions had been previously published, which 

 gave, however, no real indication of the rich- 

 ness of the field to be explored, systematic 

 investigation of this literature was first be- 

 gun by Petr N. RyTmikof, of Petrzavodsk, 

 on Lake Onega, about 1860. He discov- 

 ered the chief minstrel of the region and 

 the most important poem, and succeeded 

 in collecting more than 50,000 verses. A. 

 F. Hilferding, who followed him in 1870, 

 made a still larger collection. " Two of the 

 causes which have aided in the preservation 

 of epic poetry in these remote districts, long 

 after its disappearance from other parts of 

 Russia, are liberty and loneliness. These 

 vol. xxix. 18 



people have never been subjected to the 

 oppressions of serfdom, and have never lost 

 the ideal of free power celebrated in the an- 

 cient rhapsodies." In the isolation of their 

 forests, moreover, they do not come in con- 

 tact with the world, and have never felt the 

 influence of change conditions remain as in 

 epic times. They also thoroughly believe the 

 truth of the marvelous things recited in the 

 poems. A curious incident is related, in 

 which the imposition of a new forestry reg- 

 ulation contributed to the extension of the 

 songs. A community were compelled to 

 abandon their farms, and went to net-mak- 

 ing. As farmers, they knew nothing of the 

 songs ; in company with the net-makers and 

 other handicraftsmen, they learned them all. 

 The singing of the poems is not now a pro- 

 fession, but is a domestic diversion , and the 

 present minstrels all belong to the peasant 

 class, and are nearly all well-to-do. The 

 epic songs proper are divisible into three 

 groups the cycle of Vladimir or Kiev, that 

 of Novgorod, and that of Moscow and these 

 are preceded by three songs of the Elder 

 Heroes. In the songs of the Vladimir cycle, 

 the recently Christianized people for con- 

 venience' sake baptized their heathen gods, 

 making of Perun, the thunderer, nya, or 

 Elijah the Prophet, the hero of the series, 

 and earned the epithet of " two-faithed," 

 which was applied to the Russian people by 

 their older writers. The Novgorod cycle is 

 more restricted, consisting practically of but 

 two songs, and is more definite, more prac- 

 tical, and closer to history than the Kiev 

 cycle. The Moscow cycle begins with Ivan 

 the Terrible and ends with Peter the Great, 

 and is not represented in this volume. A 

 running view of the development of this 

 poetry is given in the author's introduction. 



Applied Geology : A Treatise on the Indus- 

 trial Relations of Geological Structure ; 

 and on the Nature, Occurrence, and 

 Uses of Substances derived from Geo- 

 logical Sources. By Samuel G. Will- 

 iams, Professor of General and Eco- 

 nomic Geology in Cornell University. 

 New York : D. Appleton & Co. 1886. 

 Pp. 386. Price, $1.50. 



The study of geology may be carried on 

 with two entirely different aims. For one 

 who undertakes the study for the sake of 

 the science itself, the chief interest lies in 

 tracing out from the records of stone a his- 



