5 MAY 1888, Page 23

The Chameleon. By Charles J. Dunphie. (Ward and Downey.) —These

"fugitive fancies on many-coloured matters," as the author calls them, are as difficult to criticise, or even to describe, as such things commonly are. Perhaps the best way of giving an idea of them will be to say that they are as like "Elia " as a favourite disciple's works are like his master's. There is the same variety of subject. Mr. Dunphie has views about " Burlesque," as Lamb doubtless would have had, had it been then born, or, let us say, attained its present growth. Ho is sometimes pathetic, more frequently humorous, and he writes some good Latin verse of the comic kind. Altogether, this is a pleasant volume which one may dip into at random, feeling sure that one will light on something readable.