Memoirs of the Verney Family. By Margaret M. Verney. Vol.
IV. (Longmans and Co. 21a.)—The concluding volume of these delightful memoirs is as good as those that preceded it, and the four volumes now constitute one of the most valuable additions over made to the domestic history of England. Those who remember the figure of Tom Verney, the Puritan, or rather Caroline, Micawber in Vol. III. will be delighted to find him again, and to note that his old characteristics do not desert him. A letter on Poverty the arch-enemy, addressed by him to Sir Edmund Verney, seems as if it must have been composed by Charles Dickens. But would Micawber have said, as does Tom, that it was "a crumb of comfort" to him that the plague "may happily tcuch my chief creditor Colladon before it leaveth " ?— there is a touch of malignity here not to be met with in what we must crave leave to call the great original. Onr only regret in the present volume is that we do not hear quite enough of the inimitable Tom. And, cl propos of this, we would make a humble suggestion to Lady Verney. Why should not she make a complete and full-length study of Tom,—giving us his letters in full, and telling the whole story of his adventurous life ? It is a task well worth undertaking, and the book should prove infinitely humorous.
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