The Monthly.

The Monthly for February is, on the whole, the best number of the year. It contains one very remarkable story which it will pay every man in college to read: "The Unbegotten Sons," by Paul Chalfin.

"The Unbegotten Sons" is the most mature piece of fiction which has appeared in the Monthly for a long time. While the plot in a certain way is unreal, it is treated with unusual richness of imagination. The style is vivid and sensuous. It is pity that the author's analysis is not equal to his imagination. He brings together twin brothers, who see in each other no resemblance. They address each other as "child" and "old man" respectively. The Abbe of Cisley hates them with the most undying hatred because they were the illegitimate sons of his wife and his brother; yet the moment they succumb to his diabolical cruelty he finds he loves them as if they were his own children.

"Kalypso," a poem by Joseph Trum bull Stickney, is an ambitious effort. It is, however, a failure, because sense is sacrificed to form. The cadences of the metre are exquisitely melodious. This extract is characteristic:

"And slowly

Wind rose. Rustle crept to 's ear. Thro' meshes of her hair he saw grayblown

The thick tumultuous cloud blotted and streaked

With witchery of dead moon. The midnight whirred.

Sparsely the windy stars, and feebly hung.

A little leaf withered blew by; it scratched

Him with its frittered edge. For it was autumn.

The reader is at first attracted by the musical metre; but on closer examination the whole thing is seen to be affectation. No one ever yet saw a dead moon, or heard the midnight whir. The epithet windy is beautifully inappropriate for stars.

"How Matthew Went Beyond the Mountains" is a clever story by Henry Alexander Phillips. The conventional Yankee country people are treated with pleasing freshness.

The other articles are: Neptunian, poem by P. H. Savage; The Creed of Romanticism: Keats, by R. G. Valentine; The Voice of the West Wind and As far as the East is from the West, by R. P. Utter.