Fraser's Magazine, February. The most readable, if not the best
paper in Fraser is upon the House of Lords, in which we are told, among other things, that Lord Campbell is better informed on the poli- tics of South-Eastern Europe than almost any Opposition Peer, and that although he does not do himself justice as a speaker, he is always listened to for the sake of the information he imparts,—not at all the public idea of the noble lord. The sketches strike us as generally accurate and vivid, though we should demur to the statement that compression is the speciality of the Peers' oratory. Some of the best
speakers in the House—Lord Cairns, for example—are very often tedious. "Carnet's Plan for Invading England" is a very curious
little bit of history. He had an idea of sending over a thou- sand or two ruffians, chiefly galley-slaves, to burn, plunder, and spread terror, to call the discontented to arms, and proclaim war to the castle and peace to the cottage. Such a force, about one thousand strong, did actually land at Fishgnard, in Pembrokeshire, on February 20, 1797, and plundered the farmhouses. The men, however, got drunk, the Welsh Volunteers assembled under Lord Cawdor, and on February 21st the French surrendered at discretion, the Yeomanry of Castlemartin being to this day annually complimented on having actually met the foe. The remaining papers are a little dull, though
one on public instruction in Egypt gives some valuable informa- tion. In Egypt, n per cent. of the population attend schools of some
sort, which is about a fifth of the English proportion, or if we remem- ber that girls seldom attend school in Egypt, about one-third, the elementary schools all teaching reading and elementary arithmetic, and some of them writing.
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