following, which are among its recommendations: That the letter "y" shall be suppressed whenever it is pronounced as "i," as in "cristal"; that "s" shall take the place of "x" in such plurals as "chevaus"; that the superfluous "h" shall be dropped in such words as "rétorique" and "téâtre"; that the French for "egg" shall henceforth be "euf"; that "pan" shall be written instead of "paon," "prent" instead of "prend," "dizième" instead of "dixième," and "exposicion" instead of "exposition." It is noteworthy that the Académie française, which has in its time done good service to French spelling, is not to be consulted. The measure is to affect schools only; but in all schools the suggested changes are to be made compulsory by Ministerial decree.

In spite of an abrupt conclusion which leaves the dissatisfied reader craving a sequel, "The King's Revoke" is an uncommonly fresh and interesting story. The period is that of Bonapartist rule in Spain, and the plot turns on the efforts of Spanish royalists to rescue Ferdinand, Prince of the Asturias, from the Castle of Valencay where he is a prisoner of state waiting Napoleon's pleasure. The hero of the story is a gallant young Irishman and the heroine a charming Marquesa, whose hereditary diamonds, pledged for the service of her King, play a prominent part. The group of English détenus at Tours contributes some unusual figures, and smugglers, spies and agents of the secret service are among the minor actors. Ferdinand himself is skilfully drawn, and Talley

rand is effectively introduced at a critical moment. The writer, Mrs. Margaret L. Woods, is to be congratulated on her choice of a subject and on the ingenuity with which she has handled it. E. P. Dutton & Co.

As the re-publications of May Sinclair's earlier novels are given one after another to American readers, the wonder grows that a writer of such talents and aims should have been so little known before the appearance of "The Divine Fire." "Audrey Craven," which Henry Holt & Co. have just issued in a style uniform with "Superseded," shows the same delicacy of perception and singleness of purpose which mark all her work. The study of a shallow and impressionable coquette, it offers abundant opportunity for that meretricious detail which too many of our popular novelists seem to use with deliberate intent to pander to unwholesome tastes. But in Miss Sinclair's work, such detail is so scrupulously limited by the psychological necessity that the whole effect is austere, and to the frivolous reader unattractive. The scene of the present story is laid in London, and in Audrey's successive lovers various modern types are cleverly satirized-the young spendthrift setting forth to retrieve his fortunes in the colonies, the artist with "only a rudimentary heart," the analytical novelist in quest of feminine material, and the high-church clergyman with his admiring train. Inferior, of course, to its successors, the book is yet far better worth reading than most of our current fiction.

KRISTNA AND HIS FLUTE.

Be still, my heart, and listen,
For sweet and yet acute
I hear the wistful music

Of Kristna and his flute. Across the cool, blue evenings, Throughout the burning days, Persuasive and beguiling,

He plays and plays and plays.

Ah, none may hear such music

Resistant to its charms, The household work grows weary, And cold the husband's arms.

I must arise and follow,

To seek, in vain pursuit, The blueness and the distance, The sweetness of that flute!

In linked and liquid sequence,
The plaintive notes dissolve
Divinely tender secrets

That none but he can solve.

Oh, Kristna, I am coming,

I can no more delay.

"My heart has flown to join thee," How shall my footsteps stay?

Laurence Hope.

IT HAPPENED IN MAY.

A maid forsaken,

A white prayer offered

Under the snow of the apple-blossom:
To whom was it proffered?
By whom was it taken?
Well, I suppose

Nobody knows.

But somehow, the snows

Of the apple-blossom

Were changed one day.

A kiss was offered,

A kiss was taken:

And lo! when the maiden looked shyly

away,

Of bloom of the apple the boughs were forsaken! . . .

But whiter and sweeter grew orangeblossom!

Now this is quite true, I say,

And it happened in May.

The Pall Mall Magazine.

ONE FATE FOR ALL.

I will not rail, or grieve when torpil eld

Frosts the slow-journeying blood, for 1 shall see

The lovelier leaves hang yellow on the tree,

The nimbler brooks in icy fetters held. Methinks the aged eye that first beheld The fitful ravage of December wild. Then knew himself indeed dear Nature's child,

Seeing the common doom, that all compelled.

No kindred we to her beloved broods. If, dying these, we drew a selfish breath;

But one path travel all her multitudes, And none dispute the solemn Voice

that saith:

"Sun to thy setting; to your autumn, woods;

Stream to thy sea; and man unto thy death!"

Richard Garnett.

BAL MASQUE.

In the avenue the flutes
Lead the motley crew along:
Lovers, strumming on their lutes,
Sell their sorrow for a song.

Columbine and Pantaloon,
Masques and shepherdesses, move.
Underneath the silver moon,
And the statues seem in love.

Slender branches weave a net, Blue, against the silver sky; And the polished dolphins, wet, In their polished basins lie.

Where the water in the light
Delicately mirrors, pale,

All the moving colors bright

Of our costumes floating frail.

Flutes and masques and statues seem
Not to be at all; but keep
All existence as a dream
On the borderland of sleep.
Frederic Manning.

William Sharp.

The Outlook.

A melancholy reflection may have occurred to many people whose interests lie in the study of Gothic architecture. The passion for "restoration" first became vigorously operative, say, threequarters of a century ago; and if all the mediæval buildings in England had been left as they stood at that date, to incur whatever dilapidations might have befallen them at the hands of time, weather, and general neglect, this country would be richer in specimens to-day than it finds itself to be after the expenditure of millions in a nominal preservation during that period.

Its

Active destruction under saving names has been effected upon so gigantic a scale that the concurrent protection of old structures, or portions of structures, by their being kept wind and water-proof amid such operations counts as nothing in the balance. enormous magnitude is realized by few who have not gone personally from parish to parish through a considerable district, and compared existing churches there with records, traditions, and memories of what they formerly were.

But the unhappy fact is nowadays generally admitted, and it would hardly be worth adverting to on this occasion if what is additionally assumed were also true, or approximately true: that we are wiser with experience, that architects, incumbents, church-wardens, and all concerned, are zealous to act conservatively by such few of these buildings as still remain untinkered, that they desire at last to repair as far as is possible the errors of their predecessors, and to do anything but repeat them.

* Read at the General Meeting of The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, June 20, 1906.

Such an assumption is not borne out by events. As it was in the days of Scott the First and Scott the SecondSir Walter and Sir Gilbert-so it is at this day on a smaller scale. True it may be that our more intelligent architects now know the better way, and that damage is largely limited to minor buildings and to obscure places. But continue it does, despite the efforts of this society; nor does it seem ever likely to stop till all tampering with chronicles in stone be forbidden by law, and all operations bearing on their repair be permitted only under the eyes of properly qualified inspectors.

At first sight it seems an easy matter to preserve an old building without hurting its character. Let nobody form an opinion on that point who has never had an old building to preserve. In respect of an ancient church, the difficulty we encounter on the threshold, and one which besets us at every turn, is the fact that the building is beheld in two contradictory lights, and required for two incompatible purposes. To the incumbent the church is a workshop; to the antiquary it is a relic. To the parish it is a utility; to the outsider a luxury. How unite these incompatibles? A utilitarian machine has naturally to be kept going, so that it may continue to discharge its original functions; an antiquarian specimen has to be preserved without making good even its worst deficiencies. The quaintly carved seat that a touch will damage has to be sat in, the frameless doors with the queer old locks and hinges have to keep out draughts, the bells whose shaking endangers the graceful steeple have to be rung.

If the ruinous church could be enclosed in a crystal palace, covering it to