The House of Quiet an Autobiography. Edited by J. T.
(John Murray. 8e. not.)—This book is--or claims to be—an auto- biography of a young man whose career has been suddenly broken in upon by illness, and who finds himself condemned by ill-health to pass the rest of his life in the country on a small ancestral estate. He discourses to his readers most intimately upon his state of mind, giving his views upon life and religion with complete frank- ness. He draws also for their delectation some charming portraits of neighbours. "I have known," he writes, "griefs, humiliations, dark overshadowings of the spirit. There are moments when I have peered, as it were, into the dim-lit windows of hell. But I have had, too, my fragrant hours, tranquil joys, imperishable ecstasies, and as a pilgrim may tell his tale of travel to home- keeping folks, so I may allow myself the license to speak and tell what of good and evil the world has brought me, and of my faint strivings after that interior peace which can be found, possessed, and enjoyed." How he came to enjoy this peace is told with con- siderable fascination, and the book, though written in a minor key, is by no means sad reading. The writer believes that in the life of the majority there is a "huge preponderance of joy over pain," and sees, as he contemplates the world, great "tracts of healthy energy, sweet duty, quiet movement." Of the people to whom he introduces us, we think Mr. Wood- ward, the old clergyman of moderate views and a good income, and Mr. Cuthbert, his young successor, poor and enthu- siastically High Church, are the best drawn. Both are excellent men, the former by far the more attractive and more in sympathy with the labouring portion of his congregation. The indulgent attitude adopted by the country people towards their ex- travagant young parson is very humorously described, and is, we think, typical of the attitude of simple and more or less religiously disposed laymen towards Anglicanism. "He has not obtained any great hold on the parish. Mr. Wood- ward's quiet, delicate, fatherly work is gone ; bat Mr. Cuthbert has a few women who attend confession, and he is content. He has adorned the church according to his views, and the congrega- tion think it rather pretty. They do not dislike his sermons, though they do not understand them ; and as for his vestments, they regard them with a mild and somewhat bewildered intesest. They like to see Mr. Cuthbert, he is so pleasant and good- humoured. He is assiduous in visiting, and very assiduous in holding daily services which are entirely unattended. He has no priestly influence, and I fear it would pain him deeply if he knew that his social influence is considerable." The House of Quiet should be read out of doors in the summer, when a sweet melancholy, a gentle humour, and some very true comments on things mundane and spiritual cannot fail to fill delightfully an idle hour.
HORACE BINNEY.
The Life of Horace Mangy, wills Selections from his Letters. By Charles Chauncey Binney. (J. B. Lippincott Company.)— This is a belated but not unwelcome book, being the biography of one of the best of those lawyer-politicians who, while they have
Through the Lauds of the Serb. By Mary E. Durham. (E. Arnold. 14s. net.)—Miss Durham relates the experiences of two journeys the second, which took her to Montenegro and Old Servia, was in 1803; the first, when she went vid Montenegro to the kingdom of Servia, is undated, but it was before the occurrence of the Obrenoviteh tragedy. The book is one from which we may learn much, and by which we may at the same time be greatly enter- tained. The appearance of a solitary Englishwoman seems to have astonished the Servians very much. One wise man opined that the extraordinary liberty which permitted such a journey was due to the long reign of a Queen, and that it would be curtailed now that a King was on the throne. Astonishment was the first thought ; the desire to turn the strange event to profit was the second. Of course, if the traveller was English, she was rich ; and if she was rich, what a chance for a deserving young Serb ! Miss Durham is most amusing about her matrimonial chances. Her " record " in offers, she tells us, was five in twenty minutes. Mingled with this amiable desire to secure an eligible parti was the ever-present fear that the stranger might have designs against the country. Servia seems to be in a chronic: state of terror. It is not much to bo wondered at, when one thinks what the people is, and who aro its neighbours. These experiences make excellent reading ; so, indeed, does the whole book ; we have seldom seen a more amusing record of travel, nor does it want some elements of seriousness. There are some things especially which an Englishman will hardly note with pride. More than any other Power, Britain has kept the Turk in Europe, and the Turk, whatever his virtues, has, as Mies Durham says, never done any good for subject races. And what a barbarian he is on occasion. Not a century ago, when the Turks took a Servian town, they threw the young children into boiling water in mockery of baptism. Hero is a good occasion for Mr. Balfour's "balance of criminality" notion. Another discreditable thing is the incompetence of English traders. There is not ninch business in these regions, but we allow other nations to snap it up, because we cannot write commercial letters in any language but our own. —With this may be mentioned The City of the Magyars, by F. Berkeley Smith (T. Fisher Unwin, 5s. net), a lively record of ex- periences in Buda-Pesth. The author is profuse in his acknow- ledgments of Hungarian hospitality, and is generally a friendly
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