7 MAY 1887, Page 23

Cruise of the Land - Yacht Wanderer.' By Gordon Stables. (Hodder and

Stoughton.)—This is the account of a prolonged journey in England and Scotland in a glorified edition of a gipey caravan. A more expensive and uncomfortable way of spending a holiday cannot be imagined ; and the experiences of the author certainly do not invite the reader to imitate him. The narrative is dull, with occasional attempts at elaborate description and fine-writing which are not very succeed-al. The beet parts of the book are the pictures ; but these are made lees attractive by the devotion of so large a proportion of them to drawings of curious forms of milestones and finger-posts, —not very interesting subjects. Some of the smaller illustrations give, however, very pretty little peeps of scenery.

Messrs. Bontledge and Co. send us two marvels of cheap printing, a complete edition of Macaulay's Essays, and The Shilling Illustrated Shakespeare, Charles Knight's edition, with Sir John Gilbert's illustrations, 63 in number. The latter is doubtless the more remarkable, as ehowiag what can be done for a little money in these days. There are 832 pages, double-columned, with 85 lines in each column. Taking the discounted price, the purchaser gets 15,000 lines and seven fall-page pictures for a penny. The Macaulay, with its 860 pages and 55 lines to a page, does not rival this. But neither has the purchaser here any right to complain, and the printing is decidedly clearer. We cannot honestly say that either are volumes which we should prefer to use ; but there ie no doubt that they are a great service to the admirable cause of good, cheap literature.— In a different style are the new volumes of " The Parchment Library," —The Poetical Works of John Milton. 2 vole. (Kagan Paul, Trench, and Co.)—The series is too well known to need description, and we may say that this last addition is in every way worthy of it.