At first she does not like him, but presently yields to his suit and becomes queen of his castle. The pair have a son who, from the moment of his birth, sings, dances, and beats the air. The boy is petted and given full liberty, save that he is forbidden to cross a certain line which bounds the magic precinct of the castle. But one day he hears music and sees soldiers; crosses the line out of curiosity, gets into a quarrel with the soldiers and is killed. The mother wrings her hands in grief, and in so doing pulls off her ring. She falls back into the arms of Faust, who finds that he has only her dress in his embrace. Mephistopheles, who has seen all this in the capacity of an old stewardess, tries to comfort Faust by directing his attention to the charms of wealth and power. The owner of the castle had been killed in Palestine and greedy monks try to get possession of the place. Faust fights with them, aided by three mighty men, whom Mephistopheles gives him as allies, comes off victorious, avenges the death of his son and wins a great estate. Meanwhile he grows old, and what happens to him later will appear when we gather together at some future time the fragments, or rather sporadic passages, of the Second Part which have been already worked out, and thus rescue some things that will be of interest to the reader.

2. "On the historical development of the types of the first person plural imperative in German." By Professor W. Kurrelmeyer, of Franklin and Marshall College. [Published by Karl J. Trübner, Strassburg, 1900.]

The results of this paper were discussed by Professor B. J. Vos.

3. "The episodes in Shakespeare's I. Henry VI." By Professor John B. Henneman, of the University of Tennessee. [Printed in Publications, XV, 290 f.]

This paper was discussed by Professors W. H. Hulme and J. M. Garnett.

4. "The first centenary of the birth of Leopardi." By Professor L. E. Menger, of Bryn Mawr College.

Leopardi will always hold a warm place in the hearts of his countrymen on account of his ardent patriotism, if for nothing else. Especially is he cherished in the affections of the young, thoughtful men of Italy, who see in his absolute independence of tradition, in his bold free thought, perilous in his day, the promise of that advancement of Italy which is her due. We find, therefore, that the movement in honor of his birth was not left to

seek expression in the formality of senatorial resolutions alone; the representative student body of Italy organized to extol him, and for some qualities, too, which the more conservative government representatives deemed it politic to ignore. We may, then, consider the celebrations under these two headings: Those of the students and those of the Government.

The former were perhaps the more interesting. A committee of students of the University at Rome, decided upon the character which the celebrations were to assume. This was, in brief, the following: In the first place a series of lectures on the various sides of Leopardi's activity were delivered by men prominent in the investigation of similar subjects. In the second place, a sum was raised for the erection of a monument expressive of the appreciation of Italian youth for the poet. Again, a prize was offered for the best essay on Leopardi's literary influence. Finally, the publication of a memorial containing detailed accounts of all celebrations was undertaken. The controlling idea throughout the students' resolutions and actions seemed to be the apotheosis of Leopardi as a “Free Thinker." This attitude caused some friction between students and the university authorities, and may explain the non-participation in their meetings of some eminent Italian literary figures.

The Parliament avoided reference to any peculiar beliefs or theories of Leopardi; all its acts in his honor were of the dignity befitting a literary figure considered by the senate as national, and not to be narrowed down to become the boast of any one set of thinkers. By the initiative of the Government the publication of unedited manuscripts of Leopardi was inaugurated, his tomb in Naples was declared a national monument, a bust of him was placed in the Senate House, and streets, parks, and buildings in his native province had their names changed so as to commemorate the illustrious poet.

In addition to these two organized movements there were many individual celebrations: books, articles, busts, medallions, monuments, and inscriptions were dedicated to him throughout the nation.

In discussing this paper Mr. J. E. Shaw had special reference to Sergi's recent theory of the origin of Leopardi's pessimism (Nuova Antologia, vol. 74, p. 577).

Mr. Shaw said:

The peculiar nature of the pessimism of Leopardi has always been a subject for comment by literary critics. The explanations of its cause, hitherto accepted, have taken the form of one or the other of the two following theories:

1. Leopardi's state of mind was due to an infirmity of the nerves, which he inherited.

2. This pessimism was the result of the sceptical views of life, held by the poet, based on his scientific beliefs.

The new theory advanced by Sergi is, to put it briefly :

Leopardi suffered from a weakness of his perceptive faculties, resulting from the inability of his sense-organs, to give clear impressions of the outside world, whether material or ideal. In fact, the poet's perceptive faculties were stunted in their growth, and remained, throughout his life, in the state in which they are naturally in childhood. As, for instance, in children, an appreciation of the beauties of nature, a keen distinction of sounds in music, and a real appreciation of the love that others have for them, are rare, so Leopardi never attained to these, and the reason he could never attain to them, was that his sense-organs were defective.

As evidence of the feebleness of the sense-organs, Sergi says that Leopardi was unable to appreciate the beauty of color, since the references to colors, in his poems, are few and vague. As to his hearing, that he could not distinguish sounds properly is shown by his saying, in a letter to Antonietta Tommasini, that although he himself spoke French fluently, he was unable to understand others when they spoke in French. And the fact that he enjoyed hearing music, does not injure the conclusion, since a vague sense of pleasure from music, has nothing to do with a real appreciation of it. Leopardi's cutaneous sensations, again, offer still better evidence, for they seem to have consisted in a remarkable irritation, a sensation of pain, without any clear knowledge being conveyed of the nature of the stimulus.

The result of all this was that the poet was unable to perceive the true nature of things, and consequently was unable to believe in it. He therefore withdrew within himself, denying everything, and nature was to him a mere emptiness into which he himself was uselessly cast, to receive only the most torturing sensations whenever he attempted to grasp at the alleged reality of things.

Another result was that he was forced into an absolute subjectivity of thought. All he thought of was himself and his loathsome condition, and this was all he wrote about. Whenever he seems to be speaking of larger things, it is only his use of general terms, says Sergi, which leads us to think so. In evidence of this, Sergi cites many lines from the poet's works.

The only part played by the studies of Leopardi, in bringing about this state of things, consists in this: since his studies were almost exclusively classical, they tended to estrange his mind from all practical matters, by causing him to reflect continually on a dead civilization, a state of things which was past and dead.

The general criticism to be made on the article is that it contains more assertion than evidence, and the latter is of a somewhat flimsy nature. The author, too, is too dogmatic and extreme in his statements. His theory is, nevertheless, worthy of consideration. For a detailed criticism, see the reply to the article, by Graf in Nuova Antologia, 1o Giugno, 1898, vol. 75, p. 504.

5. "Contributions to English literary criticism culled from eighteenth century letter-writers." By Professor W. H. Hulme, of Western Reserve University. [Read by title.]

6. "The Spanish poet, Luis Barahona de Soto." By Professor H. A. Rennert, of the University of Pennsylvania. [Read by title.]

Luis Barahona de Soto owes his reputation as a poet mainly to the extravagant praise with which Cervantes mentions his works-especially his Angelica, a poem suggested by Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. He was born at Lucena, in the southern part of the Kingdom of Granada, about 1520. He attended the University of Osuna, and was graduated a Bachelor in Arts in 1568. He then studied medicine in the same university, and afterwards at Seville, becoming a licentiate-probably at Alcala-after 1573. In his early years he seems to have led a rather adventurous life, having served in the Morisco wars in Granada. In addition to the Angelica, of which only the first part was printed (Granada, 1586), de Soto wrote four Satires, and an Eclogue, that have been published, and a number of poems that are still in Ms.

EXTRA SESSION.

The Association convened in an extra session December 27, at 8.30 p. m., when the President of the Association, Professor H. C. G. von Jagemann, of Harvard University, delivered an address entitled "Philology and Purism." [Printed in Publications, xv, 74 f.]

SECOND SESSION, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28. The President opened the second session at 9.45 o'clock on Thursday morning.

The reading of papers was resumed.

7. "Fatalism in Hauptmann's dramas." By Dr. M. Schuetze, of the University of Pennsylvania.

8. "The Round Table before Wace." By Dr. Arthur C. L. Brown, of Harvard University. [Printed in Studies and

Notes in Philology and Literature (Harvard University), VII, 183 f.]

This paper was discussed by Professor J. W. Bright.

9. "The Nature Poetry of Shelley and his contemporaries." By Professor Pelham Edgar, of Victoria University, Toronto.

The poets are first compared from the point of view of their relative susceptibility to sense impressions. Keats' method of regarding Nature is frankly sensuous and pagan. Shelley's poetry, while not by any means lacking in the sensuous quality, is penetrated by a spirit of mysticism that was alien to the genius of the younger poet. Again, the sensuous appeal in Keats passes in many instances through the channels of our grosser senses of touch and taste. Sensuousness in Shelley is almost entirely of the eye and ear, although exquisite odors are responsible too for several memorable passages (Alast, 1. 451 f.; Epipsychidion, 1. 446 f.).

A comparison of the sound and color effects in either poet exhibits the superior capacity of Shelley as regards both scope and intensity.

To exhibit the methods of each poet in detail an examination of their forest descriptions is undertaken. The paper concludes with a discussion of the figurative and color elements in the work of these poets.

10. "Rime-parallelism in Old High German verse." Professor B. J. Vos, of Johns Hopkins University.

By

By rime-parallelism is meant the joining in rime of words that are from the point of view of inflectional endings parallel forms. This is naturally the easiest and simplest sort of rime, the identity of the endings in question in each case necessitating a rime. Of the five monuments considered, rime-parallelism is a characteristic feature in three: Otfried, Ludwigslied, and Georgslied. Not so in Christus und die Samariterin and Psalm 138. This result agrees exactly with the order of time in which it is supposed these poems were written. The difference is brought out still more clearly by comparing the episode of Christ and the Samaritan woman as related by Otfried with the treatment of the later poet, Otfried using 35 per cent. of parallel rimes, where the later poet uses only 13 per cent. The investigation perhaps also throws some light on the question of the origin of rime in German and of the length of suffix-syllables in Otfried.

11. "A'n't and ha'n't." By Professor George Hempl, of the University of Michigan.

Discussion was contributed by Professors H. A. Todd, H. C. G. von Jagemann, F. N. Scott, and D. K. Dodge.