tin Silk Attire ' followed. This was a combina- 

 ..on of theatrical life with life in a Black Forest 

 village ; the sketches of deer shooting are very .well 

 lone, but the book obtained a greater success than 

 it deserved. The opposite was the case with ' Kil- 



leny ' a sort of Alton-Locke story, though I tried 

 cure my hero of his Weltschmerz by removing 

 lira into the freer and more joyous life of an art 



Indent in Bavaria. ' A Daughter of Heth ' was 



ublished anonymously for various reasons in 

 , and I think the book must have been pretty 



ridely read, for I do not know how often 1 have 



een it since, under various titles and guises, with 

 the name of some amiable and industrious lady on 



le title-page. ' The Strange Adventures of a 



J haeton ' a book in which there is nothing strange 

 3ut the total absence of adventures was founded 

 jn a driving excursion I made from London to 



dinburgh. There was a thread of romance run- 

 ling through its pages, but all the same it may be 



iken and has been taken, I am glad to say, 

 though mostly by Americans as a sufficiently ac- 

 curate guidebook to the villages, roads, and inns 

 be met with on that delightful journey. ' A 

 ^rincess of Thule ' appeared in 1873, and" since 

 that time has not failed to puzzle a good many peo- 

 ple on both sides of the Atlantic, they being ap- 



irently as ignorant (to take modern literature 

 bnly) of Thompson as of Whittier, with regard to 

 the pronunciation of its title. The controversy 

 raged most fiercely in America, and the contagion 

 pould seem to have spread into Canada, for the 

 ather day I got a pamphlet containing a number 

 poetical contributions toward the study of this 



econdite question which had been written by mem- 



ers of the Canadian House of Commons and pre- 

 sented to Lord Dufferin. ' Three Feathers ' was 

 my next novel. ' The Saturday Review ' said that 

 this was a very good book, and ' The Spectator.' 

 appearing on the same day, said it was a very bad 

 one, and when I asked my friends which I was to 

 believe they said, ' Of course, " The Saturday Re- 

 view." ' But the fact is I had by this time been 

 studying the craft of story-telling for about ten 

 years, and I began to despair of obtaining any 

 enlightenment from the young gentlemen who, 

 fresh from college, were equally ready to lecture a 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer about his ignorance 

 of the first principles of taxation and to prove to an 

 African traveler that his statements of what he 

 actually saw were preposterously absurd. I could 

 not blame these young men, for I had a painful 

 recollection of my own escapades in that direction ; 

 but I gave up all hope of learning anything from 

 them about my own business. My last published 

 novel, ' Madcap Violet,' already appears to be most 

 popular of these books of mine, as it undoubtedly 

 contains the best work of which I am capable. But 

 as to the 'something serious' which Mr. Carlyle 

 once suggested I should write in offering this cruel 

 "lint he did not know how he was revenging him- 



elf on me for my juvenile impertinence in prais- 

 ing him who can tell? My more intimate friends 



-one half of whom seem to consider my novels fa- 

 cetious and trivial, the other half complaining of 

 them as far too gloomy and tragic appear to agree 

 in thinking that there ought to be something 'be- 

 yond these voices.' Perhaps I shall satisfy them 

 in time. Perhaps I shall end as I began with a 



sries of suggestions for the better government of 

 the universe." Mr. Black was married and had 



2veral children. The family had a house in Lon- 

 lon, one at Oban, Scotland, and one in Brighton, 

 where he spent most of his time in his maturer 



ears, and did all his writing. His study was at 

 the top of the house, where he retired to work two 



ours after breakfast and one hour after dinner. 



OBITUARIES, FOREIGN. (BLACK BUFFET.) 



He was devotedly fond of his native land, and has 

 written fine descriptions of its scenery. Outdoor 

 life and sports were greatly to his liking, and he 

 did much traveling. Besides the books already 

 mentioned, Mr. Black wrote ''James Merle: Aii 

 Autobiography" (1864); "Mr. Pisistratus Brown, 

 M. P., in the Highlanders " (1871) : " The Monarch of 

 Mincing Lane" (1871); "The Maid of Killeena" 

 (1874); "Lady Silverdale's Sweetheart" (1876): 

 " Green Pastures and Piccadilly " (1877) ; " Macleod 

 of Dare "(1878); a biography of Oliver Goldsmith 

 (1880); "White Wings: A Yachting Romance" 

 (1880) ; " Sunrise : A Story of These Times " (1881) ; 

 "The Beautiful Wretch f> (1882); " The Four Mac- 

 nicols" (1882); "The Pupil of Aurelius" (1882); 

 " Shandon Bells " (1883) ; " Yolande " (1883) ; " Ad- 

 ventures in Thule '' (1883) ; " Judith Shakespeare " 

 (1884); "White Heather" (1885); "Wise Women 

 of Inverness " (1885) ; " Stand Fast, Crag Royston " 

 (1886); "Sabina Zembra" (1887); "The Strange 

 Adventures of a House-boat," a sequel to the 

 " Phaeton Adventures " (1888) ; " In Far Locha- 

 ber " (1889) ; " The New Prince Fortunatus " (1890) ; 

 " Donald Ross of Heimra " (1891) ; " Handsome 

 Humes" (1893); "Highland Cousins" (1894); 

 " Briseis " (1896) ; and " Wild Eelin " (1898). 



Bond, Sir Edward Augustus, an English li- 

 brarian, born at Hanwell, England, Dec. 31, 1815 ; 

 died Jan. 2, 1898. He was the son of the Rev. John 

 Bond, then master of a large school at Hanwell, 

 and was educated at the Merchant Tailors' School. 

 London, and received in 1833 an appointment in 

 the Public Record service. In 1837 he became an 

 assistant in the manuscript department in the Brit- 

 ish Museum, and he was appointed keeper of the 

 department in 1867. In 1878 he was made princi- 

 pal librarian of the museum, retiring from that 

 office in 1888. It was due to his influence that the 



Srinting of the British Museum Catalogue was un- 

 ertaken, a work now brought nearly to comple- 

 tion, and the introduction of the electric light into 

 the reading room is also due to him. In 1879 he 

 received the degree of LL. D. from Cambridge, and 

 in 1885 he was made a C. B. The title of K. C. B. 

 was conferred upon him the day before his death. 

 He was the founder, with Mr. E. M. Thompson, of 

 the Palaeographical Society, and he edited, among 

 other works, the speeches of Warren Hastings (Lon- 

 don, 1859-'61). 



Boudin, Eugene, a French painter, born in 1835; 

 died in Deauville early in August, 1898. A love of 

 painting came to him while contemplating the 

 ocean, and on seeing his first efforts Troyon and 

 Isabey counseled him to, devote himself to art. 

 Between 1853 and 1877 he exhibited numerous can- 

 vases which were not appreciated by the public at 

 their worth. It was not till 1880 that dealers and 

 amateurs began to seek the painter whom Corot 

 had called the " king of skies/' His subjects were 

 taken mostly from the coasts of Normandy and the 

 fields of Provence. 



Brin, Benedetto, an Italian statesman and naval 

 constructor, born in 1833; died in Rome, May 24, 

 1898. He was a Piedmontese, and was educated in 

 Turin, where he qualified as a naval architect. He 

 rose to the top of his profession in the navy yard at 

 Leghorn, became the chief authority in naval archi- 

 tecture, and raised the prestige of the Italian navy 

 by the construction of the monster ironclads " Le- 

 panto." " Duilio," and " Dandolo." In 1876 he be- 

 came Minister of Marine, and three times afterward, 

 he filled that office, which he held at the time of his 

 death. Under Premier Giolitti he was Minister of 

 Foreign Affairs. 



Buffet, M., a French statesman, born in Mire- 

 court, Vosges, in 1818; died in Paris, July 7, 1898. 

 He studied law and practiced as an advocate till 



