Sketches from a Tour through Holland and Germany. By J.
P. Mahaffy and J. C. Rogers. (Macmillan.)—"This book," says the preface, "is really a joint-stock undertaking." It is not the less true that the well-known characteristics of Professor Mahaffy's work are conspicuously present. One of them certainly is to keep a reader very much awake, always to interest and sometimes to irritate him. Generally, we may say that a more pleasant book of travelling experiences has seldom come in our way. The companions began their journey by going down the Thames, a route which they justly praise, and to which the only objection is the maddening amount of stoppages Rolland was then visited, special attention being given to the cities about the Zuyder Zee. They made a. pilgrimage to the scenes of Descartes' life, but found little or nothing about him. The Dutch impressed them favourably, save as to their religion, which has been certainly minimised. A " Liberal " Dutchman would be thought to be a renegade if he went to church. They have the bad habit of using dogs as beasts of draught; but it must be said that the dogs do not seem to dislike it. An intelli- gent dog would probably prefer drawing a cart to being chained to a kennel. From Holland the travellers went to Germany, saw Brunswick, Helmsdedt, and other towns. They passed by Gottingen, being repulsed by a sight of the students,—" A more beery, swollen, criminal-looking set of people it would be hard to find." (Surely we have here Professor Mahaffy's hand.) Marburg pleased them better. The Wartburg pleased them very much indeed; but here they were guests of the Grand Duke. German
"life and art" would lose a great deal, they think, if the smaller capitals were swallowed up in the ugliness of Berlin. Then we are taken to Wismar, a town on the Mecklenberg coast, where the travellers confess to a- "scandalous ignorance" about the house of Reuss. Why, even the "fifth-form boy" knows about the elder and the younger house of Reuss, and how all the sons are named John, the counting beginning again when the hundred is reached. Hamburg was found very delightful. In the concluding chapters we have some free hitting at various things and persons disliked by Professor Mahaffy, and, of course, his companion. The Prussians are not among their favourites—whose favourites are they P—but they have justice done to them.
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