My Time, and What I've Done with It : an
Autobiography. By F. C. Burnand. (Macmillan.)—Whatever Mr. Burnand writes is sure to be brilliant. Yet even brilliancy tires, and we must confess that we have sometimes found Mr. Burnand also just a little tiresome. In short, this is not an easy book to read. The story seldom fails to amuse, but it does not excite, and the reader wants excitement of some kind to be drawn easily along. Doubtless it was better suited for the instalments in which it first appeared (our readers will remember it in Macmillan's Magazine). Particular chapters, however, are very good. The description of. Holyshade will be recognised and enjoyed by Etonians, though indeed it cannot be said to be a flattering likeness. But then the leatures of Eton, to those who have seen them closely, are not susceptible of flattery. " Cowbridge " gives the occasion for another picture, also drawn from life, but less complete and more inter- rupted by other matter. To draw from life is evidently indeed one of Mr. Barnand's gifts. Throughout, his characters have the look of being so drawn. But they are not very artistically posed, a thing in which one photographer will, as all the world knows, very much excel another. Still a clear, well-defined photograph is always interesting, and there are plenty of them here.
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