A Nook in the .Apennines ; or, a Sumner beneath
the Chestnuts. (C. Kogan Paul and Co.)—A family, wearied out with the heat of Florence in Juno, migrate to a charming spot among the mountains, and, first and most obvious of many advantages, change their tempera- ture from 960 to 700 Just now this has not the charm for us which It might sometimes have ; but we can quite appreciate, nevertheless, this very charming description of an Italian villeggiatura. Places, people, and customs are sketched in a very attractive way. The people, especially, seem very charming. Their courtesy is something quite uncommon, an inheritance, the author thinks, from the old Roman and Etruscan civilisations. The Apenninieola, as Virgil describes the denizen of the hills, was famous for craft ; our author found him as simple as he was polite. Society is of a very primitive kind, nothing showing this more than the power which the old possess over their juniors. Village fttes, drawing for the conscription, excursions, and the like, are among the subjects of the writer's very entertaining pen, and of a pencil which not unworthily seconds its efforts.
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