The Golden Flower, Chrysanthemum. ColUiled, 

 arranged and ciiihdlishi'd 7oith original designs by F. Schuy- 

 ler Mathews. L. Prang Co., Boston. 4 to. Colored 

 plates. $10. This is probably tlie finest and most im- 

 portant art-book upon cultivated plants yet issued from 

 an American press. It is a collec- 

 Chrysanthcmums. tion of beautiful portraits of rep- 

 resentative chrysanthemums and 

 unique panel designs, and poems by various authors 

 dedicated to the chrysanthemum or to particular varie- 

 ties. The follo\Ving sorts are illustrated ; Kioto, Lacin- 

 iatum, Neesima, Mrs. Alpheus Hardy, Mrs. C. H. 

 Wheeler, Moonlight, Tokio, Jardin des Plantes, CuUing- 

 fordii, October Beauty, Ceres, Golden Dragon, Medusa, 

 Lilian B. Bird, Peter the Great, John Thorpe, King of 

 Crimsons Christmas Eve. The portraits are all but 

 one in full color and life size, and are executed with 

 great faithfulness. The purely artistic features of the 

 plates and designs are everywhere fresh, graceful and 

 inspiring. A few pages of general matter concerning the 

 chrysanthemum are introduced by the compiler, but the 

 chief textual features of the volume are short poems, 

 mostly incorporating some legend or sentiment. The 

 Japanese legend of the origin of the chrysanthemum 

 from the transformation of a beautiful woman, is mar- 

 velously symbolized in a glowing frontispiece, in which 

 the golden flower springs from the hair of the princess ; 

 and Louis Carroll has sung of the same legend, of 



' ' That !<old-encircled head, with radiance quaint 

 As Fra Angelico's sweet aureoled saint : — 

 Her marvelous crown of womanhood — 

 The queenly Golden Flower's." 



We are glad to see the story of the ardent Neesima told 

 so well, with such ample record of the varieties which 

 he introduced. The story of that most wonderful flower 

 of modern times, the Mrs. Alpheus Hardy, reads like ro- 

 mance ; and the flower will spread the memory of the 

 missionary's name throughout the flower-loving world. 



The book is in every way a jewel, and we hope that it 

 augurs of the time when America can support many 

 more as passionate and inspiriting. 



Joy and other Poems. Rose Brake Poems, These 

 are two dainty little volumes by our correspondent Mrs. 



Danske Dandridge, from the press of 

 Books of Verse. the Putnam's. The poems are short, 

 sweet and musical, born of a restful 

 nearness to nature. Their music is of that peculiar airi- 

 ness and daintiness which one can hear only when he 

 listens; it is the faintest silver note struck in the throat 



of a blue-bell, or tripped from a harp tuned on the wing 

 of a bee. It is the matin 



" Of elves that sport beneath the moon. 

 Around the hazel or the thorn, 

 While crickets chirp a dancing tune 

 Till all the east is red with morn." 



One lives in a sweet and dreamy world when he reads 

 them, where every note is fine-drawn and crystalline, a 

 sort of silent symphony borne in colors and perfumes. 



" Fashion thin horns of blossom-tubes and blow ; 

 Tinkle the lucent pebbles of the rill ; 

 Fetch me a mating bird to twitter low ; 

 Spin sounds of night, fine-drawn, remote and shrill," — 



This is an invocation to dreams ! It is too fragile to be 

 read aloud. And this, the spirit which dropped into the 

 throat of the wood-sparrow, is like a fairy octave played 

 upon a crystal : 



" ' Twas long ago : 

 The place was very fair ; 



And from a cloud of snow 

 A spirit of the air 



Dropped to the earth below. 

 It was a spot by man untrod, 



Just where 

 I think is only known to God. 



The spirit, for awhile. 

 Because of beauty freshly made. 



Could only smile ; 

 Then grew the smiling to a song. 

 And as he sang he played 

 Upon a moonbeam-wired cithole 

 Shaped like a soul." 



We only fear that too few people can hear these little 

 voices. But the music is above criticism, because un- 

 like everything except itself. It is like a 



" Gauzy veil of gossamere. 

 Dew-embroidered, gemmed and sheer, 

 Thrown about the woodland ways." 



A Few Flowers Worthy of General Culture. 

 B. A. Elliott Co., Ftttsluirg/i, Penn. This is the eighth 

 edition of this artistic brochure. Although it is designed 

 primarily as an advertising medium, its manner and 

 matter are so superior to anything else of the kind which 

 has appeared in the country that we can 

 not refrain from calling attention to it. It Attractive 

 is a masterpiece of skillful printing and Plants, 

 illustration. It comes to us this year with 

 a white embossed cover, and with illustrations as soft and 

 expressive as those in the great magazines. Sixty pages 

 are devoted to an attempt to show the superiority of na- 

 tive and hardy plants for garden decoration, over the few 

 gaudy and unrefined immigrants which do service in the 

 omnipresent carpet-bedding. And no one, it seems to 



