Musa Pedestrie. Collected and annotated by John S. Farmer,
(Privately printed.)—As this volume, though "printed for sub- scribers only," has been sent to us for review, we shall not scruple to express an opinion about it. With the exception of a few pieces, mostly modern, the collection is distinctly dull. R. Tomlinson's parody on Byron's "My Time, 0 ye Muses, was Happily Spent," is one of the older pieces that, coarse as it is, has some literary merit ; the genuine thieves' songs, if any such there are, are dismal. In some the coarseness, and worse than coarse- ness, is unbearable. We cannot think that Mr. Farmer was justified in printing them even for "private circulation." Does this exempt a book from the operation of Lord Campbell's Act ? Is there not a provision that everything should bear a printer's name.
We have not been able to find any such. The best thing in the volume is one of the well-known "Arry and 'Arriet " series that
has appeared at intervals for some time in Punch. This is
" 'Arry at a Political Picnic." Mr. Chevalier's "Our Little Nipper," too, is good.
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