16 MARCH 1895, Page 24

Roman Gossip. By Frances Elliot. (John Murray.)—The title which Mrs.

Elliot has given to her book disarms criticism. The severest judge could not deny that the contents answer exactly to the description which this gives of them. We are not led to expect a contribution to literature, or a contribution to history, and we do not get it. We are led to expect something amusing, and here again we are not disappointed. Pio Nono, Cardinal Antonelli, Victor Emmanuel, Garibaldi, the Roman Buonapartes, and various other personages, great and small, appear in Mrs. Elliot's pages. She has nothing very important to say about them. Still, some of the details are curious and interesting, the doubt which is implied in the word " gossip " being of course always supposed.