12 FEBRUARY 1887, Page 24

Reminiscences of an Attaché. By Hubert E. H. Jerningham. (W.

Blackwood and Sone.)—A gentleman who saw Montalembert, Lacordaire, Guizot, Osiers, Gambetta, and Napoleon III., and has been at the pains to record his impression% must have something to say that is worth hearing. As he says it in a modest and pleasant way, without attempting either to show off or to make fun (except, indeed, of himself, as he often does in a good.humoured way), we are all the more pleased. Among the best sketches is one, only too short, of Pope Pius IX.; among the least agreeable is that of the Countess Gaiccioli, who seems to hare been a humbug of the fiat order. Nothing is more curious than the account of the violent invective against England with which on one occasion M. Montalem- bert startled his auditors. Commonly he was Anglophile; on this occasion he was furiously hostile. Englishmen are accustomed to regard his utterances as one of their country's best testimonials from outside. This rather disenchants us, particularly as interpreted by Nassau Senior. "He has been everything in turn ; and has rebelled against all that he has ever professed."