She concludes her interesting and useful history with the following
words, which are well worthy of quotation, though I must confess that the
'alien modernisms' trouble me not a little:

The critics of recent days have had much to say as to the
deterioration of Venice in her new activity, and the introduction of
alien modernisms, in the shape of steamboats and other new industrial
agents, into her canals and lagoons. But in this adoption of every
new development of power, Venice is only proving herself the most
faithful representative of the vigorous republic of old. Whatever
prejudice or angry love may say, we cannot doubt that the Michiels,
the Dandolos, the Foscari, the great rulers who formed Venice, had
steamboats existed in their day, serving their purpose better than
their barges and peati, would have adopted them without hesitation,
without a thought of what any critics might say. The wonderful new
impulse which has made Italy a great power has justly put strength and
life before those old traditions of beauty, which made her not only
the 'woman country' of Europe, but a sort of Odalisque trading upon
her charms, rather than the nursing mother of a noble and independent
nation. That in her recoil from that somewhat degrading position, she
may here and there have proved too regardless of the claims of
antiquity, we need not attempt to deny; the new spring of life in her
is too genuine and great to keep her entirely free from this evident
danger. But it is strange that any one who loves Italy, and sincerely
rejoices in her amazing resurrection, should fail to recognise how
venial is this fault.

Miss Mabel Robinson's last novel, The Plan of Campaign, is a very
powerful study of modern political life. As a concession to humanity,
each of the politicians is made to fall in love, and the charm of their
various romances fully atones for the soundness of the author's theory of
rent. Miss Robinson dissects, describes, and discourses with keen
scientific insight and minute observation. Her style, though somewhat
lacking in grace, is, at its best, simple and strong. Richard Talbot and
Elinor Fetherston are admirably conceived and admirably drawn, and the
whole account of the murder of Lord Roeglass is most dramatic.

A Year in Eden, by Harriet Waters Preston, is a chronicle of New England
life, and is full of the elaborate subtlety of the American school of
fiction. The Eden in question is the little village of Pierpont, and the
Eve of this provincial paradise is a beautiful girl called Monza
Middleton, a fascinating, fearless creature, who brings ruin and misery
on all who love her. Miss Preston writes an admirable prose style, and
the minor characters in the book are wonderfully lifelike and true.

The Englishwoman's Year-Book contains a really extraordinary amount of
useful information on every subject connected with woman's work. In the
census taken in 1831 (six years before the Queen ascended the Throne), no
occupation whatever was specified as appertaining to women, except that
of domestic service; but in the census of 1881, the number of occupations
mentioned as followed by women is upwards of three hundred and thirty.