5 NOVEMBER 1887, Page 45

Cathedral Bays. By Anna Bowman Dodd. (Ward and Downey.) —"

We air a great nation," said Mr. Hannibal Chollop to Martin Chnzzlewit the younger ; "and we most be cracked up" (we quote from memory). Mrs. A. B. Dodd "cracks us np," and we are pleased. Mrs. Dodd started from Arundel, and travelled to Chichester, Good- wood, Winchester, Salisbury, Wells, and Exeter, and other places less important, Arundel and Exeter being the termini of her journey. She and her companion adopted the admirable method of driving, and obtained the due reward of their wisdom. It makes us feel almost shy to quote some of the kind things which she says of our country- men. Farmers are suffering much nowadays; but it cannot but console them to bear that they have a "look of mingled simplicity, honesty, and peacefulness which no French, German, or American agri- culturist ever successfully combines." And here is a sentence which one ought to remember when one is wishing, next May, that the winter would come to an end at last :—" If England, as a country, is the most perfectly finished agricaltnrally, from the point of view of climate it is assuredly the most highly civilised. It is the climate, of all others, to produce a race of great men,"—possibly on the principle that the Russians make great linguists because their own tongue is so difficalt. Seriously, Mrs. Dodd's is a very pleasant narrative of travel. Travellers no genial, so determined to find everything good, could not fail to be satisfied. If any Englishman is disposed to grumble too mach, let him see what cultured Americans think of as. Mrs. Dodd must pardon us for saying that the epitheton ornans of "tall Roman," on p. 253, is a mistake. The Romans were not tall ; the Germans seemed almost giants to them.