Scenes on Pacific Shores ; with a Trzp across South
America. By Henry E. Croasdaile. (The Town and Country Publishing Corn- pany.)—It is the faintest of praise to say of a book that it is un- pretending, but there are certain characterless, inoffensive works of which one can say nothifig better,—or worse. This is one of that embarrassing number, and the strongest sentiment it inspires is wonder as to the possible motive which can have led to its being written. If it were not unpretending it would be easily accounted for, but it is written simply, confidingly, by a gentleman who does not impress us at all with the notion of conceit, and who seems to have experienced some difficulty in assigning to himself a motive for the perpetration of the book. The oddity of the preface is the only amusing feature in the work, the author professing that he does not "desire to lay claim to originality," that he believes "many similar incidents are far better described elsewhere by more able pens than his," that he has "trod on no new ground," but adding, in queerly involved phrase, that he "rests his plea for the acceptance of these sketches on whatever merit they may possess, as being, to some extent, the records of a naval officer's life while serving on the Pacific station." Does Lieutenant Croasdaile hold it to be part of the duty of a naval officer serving on the Pacific station to record his life, though it precisely resembles that of other officers serving in the same place, and though he neither has, nor fancies he has, anything novel to communicate to the public? If he does not take this original view of the whole duty of a naval officer, there does not appear to be a single reason for his writing the book, to oppose to those which he has furnished for his leaving it unwritten. It is harmless, twaddling, corn- mon-place, and we entirely agree with Lieutenant Croasdaile that "many similar incidents are far better described elsewhere by more able pens than his."
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