CURRENT LITERATURE.
An Old Woman's Outlook in a Hampshire Village. By Charlotte M. Yonge. (Macmillan and Co.)—There are no signs of old ago, if we except experience, in this pleasant note-book of Nature, which may remind the reader of Howitt's "Book of the Seasons." Miss Yonge's "outlook," however, is confined to a locality. She does not generalise, but describes the flowers, birds, and in- sects, the scenery, and the customs of the neighbourhood in which she lives. One of the most prolific of modern authors, the writer shows in these pages a knowledge and a love of Nature which must have proved no slight refreshment in a life so laborious as hers. Miss Yonge has much to say that is interesting about what she has seen in the woods and meadows of her Hampshire home ; about old usages and superstitions ; about the daily life of the villagers, and their large families which she does not regard with Malthusian aversion. "It is drink," she writes, "on one side of the house, muddle on the other, that cause real poverty, far more than large families, or even ill-health ; " and she relates how at one time, if a tenth child was born in a family without any previous deaths, a spray of myrtle was fastened in its christening-cap, and the parson was bound to send it to school. The author laments, as every country-lover must, the reckless destruction of roots and wild-flowers in the neighbour- hood of our large towns. The evil, indeed, is spreading far and wide, and there are many beautiful spots, twenty miles and more from London, in which wild-flowers are now rarely seen. Tramps, no doubt, who gain a poor pittance by the sale of roots and wild- flowers, are the principal robbers ; but the somewhat careless profusion shown in the decoration of churches, also robs our fields and hedgerows of much of their beauty. Among the country remedies for diseases which were in vogue some years ago, Miss Yonge describes two cures f.,r ague adopted in the next village. One was a bandage round the wrists lined with gunpowder and set on fire; the other was to lead the patient to the top of a mound, and then to push him violently down. The sufferer from fits was advised to wear a ring of beaten sixpences given by six young women who had married without changing their surname ; or to wear, suspended from the neck, "a hair from the cross on the back of a he-donkey." Shot was taken by a butler, who felt a lump in his throat, to "keep down his lights ; " which reminds us that Richard Baxter, by the advice of some wise physician, swallowed a gold bullet which nearly killed him ; and that ho was cured of a severe bleeding "by the mercy of God and the moss of a dead man's skull." An Old Woman's Outlook is full of attractive matter. The little volume must have given the author pleasure to write, and every one who appreciates the quiet enjoy- ments of a country life will find it a pleasure to read.
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