The Wanderings of the 'Beetle.' (Griffith, Farran, and Co.)—We do
not know whether we are right in including this volume in our notices of "Christmas and Gift-Books." A gift-book it may certainly be, for it is a pleasant narrative, and prettily illustrated by two of the wanderers. The Beetle,' it mast be understood, was a " pair-oared gig," in which four friends voyaged from Liege to Rotten, making their way up the Meuse to Charleville, transporting their boat thence by railway to Soissons, and thus avoiding a tedious piece of canal travelling; and so by the Oise into the Seine. The four voyagers seem to have had a decided success, to have been hospitably treated, to have fared well, on the whole, at hotels and inns, and to have met with civility, interrupted only in one instance on the Seine, from the lock-keepers on their way. The illustrations are quaint and good, and the letterpress sufficiently suitable.
Previous page
