29 NOVEMBER 1890, Page 24

When We Were Children. By E. M. Green. (Griffith, Farran,

and Co.)—This has all the look of a true story, though, indeed, it scarcely pretends to be a story. It is a chronicle of childhood, and full of little touches—the Bishop, for instance, who drank his tea without moving the cup from the saucer—that no one could in- vent. (But why does the artist give the Bishop a beard P Twenty years ago—and the story cannot be of more recent date—no English Bishop wore a beard; we do not know that any one wears it now.) Eton on Election Saturday; the first ball; the spelling- book which one sister wrote because she could not spell (quite the same reason as that for which some histories are written) ; the hen that was to make their fortunes, but dissipated their hopes one day by crowing (there is quite a pathetic story about his death), are all very lifelike descriptions. The only sensation of the book is a quite natural one, when Dick, the brother, goes to sea, and his family are very much afraid that he is lost in a ship that has been wrecked. This is a very pleasant book indeed.