CURRENT LITERATURE.
IN THE DAYS OF THE DANDIES.
In the Days of the Dandies. By Alexander, Lord Lamington. (Evaleigh Nash. 3s. 6d.)—Sir Herbert Maxwell, who edits this interesting volume, says of its author :—" The trait which revives warmest recognition in the retrospect of those who knew Lord Lamington was the extraordinary unflagging interest he showed in the projects and performances of younger men, a quality wherein some of those who have risen to greater eminence than he have betrayed deplorable deficiency." Perpetual youthfulness was the leading characteristic of that Mr. BeiIlie-Cochrano who became the first Lord Lamington, as, indeed, befitted one (and net the least) of the Disraelian dandies. Of course, what Lord Lamington has to say of this circle is the most important portion of the book from the politico-historical point of view. But in one respect the most notable portion is the appendix in which Lord Lamington's daughter, the Countess de in Warr, tells how her father—who, by the way, was lineally descended from the patriot Wallace—converted his Lanark_ shire estate from a wilderness into a paradise. This constitutes the true romance of Lord Lamington's life. "A few small mud, hovels composed the so-called village ; the valley, surrounded by high heathered hills, was generally in flood from the overflowings of the Clyde, as no banks chocked its career; there was no cultivation and very few trees ; the
inhabitants were half-savage and totally uneducated When, in 1844, he brought my mother there as a bride, Laming- ton, though still in its infancy, had undergone a great trans- formation. The valley had been made to chock the Clyde's impetuous course, cottages with pretty gardens had risen up where the hovels had been and the inhabitants showed some
signs of civilisation The plantations on the hills soon began to raise their heads, and little by little and year by year, Lamington under the hands of love, grew into the lovely spot it now is. The picturesque gabled house became the centre of intellectual life, and many can testify to the happy days spent there." The various good stories, bons mots, and political incidents which constitute nine-tenths of this book have already seen the light in Blackwood's Magazine, and were greatly enjoyed. The pictures of politicians, beauties, and dandies pure and simple could hardly be better than they are, and for stories which are really and not conventionally good the velum-) would be hard to beat. We have certainly never seen such lifelike portraits of Urquhart, the first of Russophobes, and Palmerston in his character of civis Romanus.
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