4 OCTOBER 1879, Page 21

Comical French Grammar. By Edward James Drury. (George Rivers.)—" Tho

sign of corruption of manners in a country, it's the multiplicity of laws," wrote a learned Frenchman. We see a worse sign in the multiplicity of jokes. As, however, it will often happen that a poor jest lingers in the memory when a wise saying is forgotten, so there may, possibly, be something learnt from a grammar interlarded with rather flaccid facethe, and adorned with rather vulgar illustra- tions. The method employed in this little book of rendering French phrases into literal English has the merit of familiarising the learner with the position of words. Tho examples given are well chosen, 013 the whole, and wo will hope that the grammar is fanny enough to make an idle boy take kindly to his French lesson.