The Club and Drawing - Room. By Cecil Hay, M.A. 2 vole.
(Hard- wicke.)—Mr. Hay, with considerable,—shall we call it courage?—" wishes it to be distinctly understood that ho has on every occasion, when it has been necessary to introduce into his work sketches of character, striven to select types, not persons." By way of carrying out this principle, he mentions Mr. Bright by name, and that in a distinctly offensive manner ; and ho introduces again and again, under a disguise so thin that it can deceive no one, actual persons. Some of those notices are complimentary, some neutral, some very insulting and unjust. There is one of these last, very coarse and brutal, on the well-known scholar who edits one of the quarterlies. Apart from those personalities, which of course please a certain class, Mr. Hay's volumes are distinctly dull. One wonders how he could have moved so long in a region full of good things and picked up so few. One passage we give the author hearty praise for. It is the well-earned reproof which he administers to the University men for the senseless clamour and riot with which they make London hideous on the night of the boat-race.
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