English Minstrelsie. Collated and edited by S. Baring-Gould, M.A. The
Airs arranged by M. Fleetwood Sheppard, M.A. ; F. W. Bussell, Mus.B.; and W. H. Hopkinson. (Jack, Edinburgh.)— We have the seventh volume now before us, with an introductory essay on " English Folk Music." It contains some sixty songs, none of the first class in point of fame. The first two lines of one are well enough known, but how few could finish a stanza which begins with "How happy could I be with either, Were t'other sweet charmer away." The genuine rural songs which a few older labourers still sing at rural festivities are dying out, but perhaps they are hardly worth life. They are almost always dull and sometimes coarse. The charming songs which Mr. Baring- Gould has collected—and we are much obliged to him for doing it—came from above down to the people; they are not autoc- thonous.
In the new issue of "Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel" (E. Stanford) we have North America, Vol. I., contain- ing " Canada and Newfoundland," by Samuel Edward Dawson. Newfoundland, as Mr. Dawson remarks, is the oldest of the Colonies of Great Britain, while Canada, thanks to the federation
of the provinces, is the most important. -- -
This is not the usual time for noticing guide-books, most people finding it better to stay at home. An exception, however, may be made to Black's Guide to Bath and Bristol, edited by A. R. Hope Moncrieff (A. and C. Black), with notices of the many beautiful and interesting spots that are to be found on the sea- board and hill region of Somersetshire, Clevedon, for instance, Cheddar, Glastonbury, and Wells.—We may also mention Lyonnesse : a Handbook to the Isles of Sicily, by J. C. Tonkin and
B. Prescott Row (Beechings).
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