Wandering Words. By Sir Edwin Arnold. (Longmans.)—Sir Edwin Arnold gives
us in this volume a quite delightful variety of subjects, most of them of a kind which it is very good to read about. The first paper bears the title of " An Earthly Paradise," by which we find, as we read, that Hawaii is meant. Sir Edwin was charmed with what he saw, and not the least with the Queen. This was in happier days, before the serpent, striped and starred, had entered in, and by force and fraud made the paradise his own. Of course we hear something about Japan ; we know what our traveller thinks about that. If Hawaii is paradise, Japan is heaven, or neer it. The Japanese women are "semi-angelic." Sir Edwin wrote this in haste, and defends it at leisure. But he is forced to confess that the men are scarcely appreciative of their blessing. The chapter, "Love and Marriage in Japan," is particularly interesting. Then we hear about India in the days of the Mutiny, when the writer first saw it, being then newly appointed to be Principal of the Government College at Poonab. " Indian Princes at Home " (this paper was delivered as a lecture in America) belongs to a later time, the Prince specially described being the Maharajah of Ulwah.
Another vigorous Indian sketch is "The Tiger's Village," where the principal personage is a man-eating tigress. The tiger, we are told, is a great coward, till driven to stand at bay. That is another illusion gone. We had to give up the lion long ago. Other papers have English subjects, oue of them, " Stronger than Death," being specially good.
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