On the 1Ving. By Maximilian, late Emperor of Mexico (Saunders,
Otley, and Co.), is a lively and pleasant sketch of scenes in Greece and Asia Minor, drawn by a traveller of eighteen, who had not learnt to see below the stuface of things, and for whom that surface was made to look as smooth and cheerful as possible. The sunny gaiety of the writer contrasts in a strongly pathetic way with the dark background of future trouble which is visible to the reader. To the critic the most noticeable feature of the book is a certain artistic power of seizing the striking features of a landscape. When, for instance, the writer says that the English fort at Corfu can only be compared to a "crown of thorns," he hits upon one of those comparisons which are not forgotten. The book bears a considerable resemblance to the Highland journal of our own Queen. The popular notion of the artificiality of Courts must be modified, for royal personages certainly seem to write with a sim- plicity which few of their subjects can equal. A volume of less pre- tentious size would have pleased us better, and the English of the translation might have been purer. "Disobligingness " is a very uncouth word.
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