27 JANUARY 1894, Page 13

CavaUeria Rusticana, and other Tales of Sicilian Peasant Life. Translated

by Alma Strettell. (T. Fisher Unwin.)—This is a volume of the " Pseudonym Library ; " the rule of the series in giving a false signature is broken for once, the plea being that Giovanni Verge, the author, is well known, but has never been translated here. We could have done without him, and we sin- cerely pity Miss Alma Strettell for having had to perform the task of putting him into English. Signor Verga's Sicilians are not as picturesque, or as happy, as their compatriots in the days of Theocritus, and their morality is, if anything, a shade worse.