John Darke's Sojourn in the Cotteswoldes, and Elsewhere. By S.
S. Buckman. (Chapman and Hall.)—Mr. Buckman in this series of sketches describes life in a rural district. The farm-house, the public-house (d propos of which we find given some curious details of village etiquette), fairs, harvest-homes, rustic courtship and marriage, and various other matters form the farrago of this book. The specimens of dialect are specially interesting. One describing how a man " mowded "—i.e., we presume, " moulded " —his potatoes in the prospect of a frost, is particularly good. One might say that it is something in the style of Mr. Walt Whitman's verse :—
" Bat the vrost commed strait drow the middle on 't,
An' cut the potch right clean a-two.
'Er touched nar a won o narrer side on 't,
Bat ud but a leine right drow the middle Zif a man had mowd a zwor-r-f wi' a me."
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