A Book of Table-Tallc. With Notes and Memoirs by W.
Clark Russell. (Routledge.)—The " Memoirs " with which Mr. Russell Was- trates his book are very bald and brief, and for all the help which they afford a reader, might as well be away. The "Notes" are somewhat more valuable, though they do not always display the highest critical faculty. It is rather amazing to find Croker's edition of Boswell's Johnson" spoken of as being "as useful a contribution to the history of literature as this century has produced." Did Mr. Clark ever read Lord Macaula.y's estimate of this book. Truly critic and editor differed in politics, but the literary value of the book was demolished. The "Table-talk" is, of course, capital reading, and some of it compara- tively fresh ; this of Dr. Parr, for instance. "Speaking of Gibbon's 4 Decline and Fall," he said, "There could not be a better exercise for a school-boy than to turn a page of it into English." Lord Erskine's bon mot is excellent, though it will not be new to all readers. Parry, the Arctic navigator, told Erskine, Ex-Lord Chancellor, that he and his crow, when frozen up in the Polar Sea, had lived upon seals. "And very good living too," said Lord Erskine, "if you can keep them long enough." Good, too, from the same source, "Lord Eldon's 'Table-talk," is Wilkes's answer to the Prince Regent's question, "Why, when did you become loyal?" (Wilkes had given as a sentiment, "The King, and long may he live !") "Ever since I had the honour of know- ing your Royal Highness," was Wilkes's answer.
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