BARRETT WENDELL
Barrett Wendell and his Letters. By M. A. DeWolfe Howe. (Oxford University Press. 18s.) A LITERARY man of the type of Barrett Wendell seems all his life long multiplying matter for such a biographer as the-author. His studies in English literature of the seventeenth century, his letters, and his conversation, all throw light upon his engaging personality. He cared for the writers of the past, and he lived with them so constantly that the men of the seventeenth century were almost more familiar to him than the men of his own day. It is well, now that •his work is over, that those for whom (on both sides of the Atlantic) he spent ungrudgingly the best years of his life and the maturity of his great critical powers, should know something about his manner of life and his high ideals. The United States is increasingly served, through her professors, by a wealth of ability, and public spirit. Barrett Wendell delighted to believe this and we have heard him speak with the utmost pride of this service. Whenever it was a question duringhis lifetime of doing honour to the qualities and literary labours of a fellow-professor, no one was keener than he. Those who watched him work, and
those to whom the high level of American professional character is dear, will rejoice to read the illuminating biography Mr. Howe has given us. The background of the lad is sketched, and then we meet him engaged in the study of law at Harvard. Literature, however, claimed him for her own, and Mr. DeWolfe Howe makes us feel that we have personally met the professor who delighted audiences in both England and France. A book of this inspiring quality does much to promote that feeling of unity among the English-speaking races that Barrett Wendell had so much at heart.
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