Old Lamps and New. By Joseph Hatton. (Hutchinson and Co.)—These
are pleasant, chatty sketches of people and places. We have among them experiences of travel taken in company with Henry Irving ; " Some Reminiscences of Victor Hugo ;" a record of days spent among the " Broads," and elsewhere in East Anglia; some somewhat cynical confessions from the lips of Mr. Labouchere ; an account of the Upper Thames, the longest paper in the volume ; and various miscellanea, literary and other. Mr. Hatton certainly writes in an agreeable way, but he is apt to make mistakes. In the paper on the Thames, for instance, Godstow becomes " Girdatow," and Ewelme " Eweline." (By- the-way, there is little or nothing to prove that the Thomas Chaucer buried at Ewelme was a son of the poet.) The Loddon is called the "Ludden," and Pope's poem "Londoner." Nuneham is said to " supply a seat to the Courteney family," though here the author corrects himself on the next page by saying that " Nune- ham Courteney is the seat of the Harcourt family." The motto on the ruins of Medmenham is perverted into Pay a que voudras. In a paper on George Stephenson, we are told that "his figure and pose are faithfully perpetuated in the statue in Euston Square." Mr. Hatton seems to have known him personally, but, curiously enough, the statue in Euston Square is of Robert Stephenson, the son. The Eurydice' was not " lost very much after the sad fashion of the 'Royal George.' " The `Eurydice' went down in a sudden squall ; the Royal George ' capsized while she was being heeled over for purposes of cleaning.
Previous page
