BOOKS.

REMINISCENCES, LITERARY AND CLERICAL.* THE public that likes Reminiscences—we imagine that it is a numerous body—will probably rejoice at the appearance of these volumes, which are full of stories of everything and

everybody,—from Lord Palmerston giving away livings, to Dr. Barnardo washing a baby. They are also full of the writer's own varied experiences. He has not had a more eventful life than most men, and has been hindered by ill-health from taking up regular work of any kind; but he has moved about England and the Continent, has lived for a short time in many places, has met men and women of all sorts and kinds, has written a good deal for newspapers and magazines, and tells of all he has seen and done, and especially of the people he has met, with an easy familiarity. One is a little inclined to wonder why the book should have been written, to swell what the author calls "the pleasant rush of autobiographical literature;" but there are reasons for these things,—the libraries buy these books ; and we must submit to the truth that writing one's own life, in these days, is "the last infirmity of noble minds." And it is also true that any kind of biography, even autobiography, has a charm of its own ; but this book is of rather a nondescript

kind. The author tells us too much about himself, and not enough. His own story is so mixed up with stories about other people, that we want to know more ; and as his name must be an open secret to many, we think that his book would be more interesting and a better work of art, if he made him- self openly his own hero.

For, as a work of art, the book cannot be very highly

praised. The arrangement is not good, the style is confused, the stories are mixed up so curiously one with another, that we do not always know whom we are reading about ; the English, too, is at times careless, startlingly so in a practised

writer. To justify the former of these criticisms—and perhaps the latter, too—how strangely do we lose Pascal in the follow- ing :— " People who do not care much about Pascal generally, will be interested in learning that he was the inventor of omnibuses. The grandfather of Tasso was the first who devised a postal system. Similarly our own philosophic Priestley was the inventor of the refreshing beverage of aerated waters. At the bridge of Courbevoie there was that crisis in his history when his horses fell into the Seine, and he was left on the verge in his carriage. Then he wrote out the pious resolutions which he always wore around his neck, and which I examined among his MSS. Then there is the Tour de St. Jacques, where there is his statue on the spot where he weighed the atmosphere."

We could also point out one or two odd mistakes in names, and misquotations from familiar poets, which are the more to be regretted as they could have been put right so very easily.

But in spite of all this, the book is a pleasant book, and full of entertaining glimpses of known and unknown people. We think that we have met a few of the stories before ; but most of them are new, and some bear quite the stamp of originality. For instance, this one of the author's grandfather

"My grandfather used to tell an amusing story about an ignorant young couple in his parish. He had married them, but the marriage was a failure; they could not get on at all well together. They had vast, undefined ideas of what a rector could do, and it entered into their foolish minds that he might be able to undo their marriage. So they asked him whether he could not take them into church again and perform some service which would set them free, as they were before. The Rector said, musingly : 'Well, I think if you come to church I could put you into the way of becoming unmarried. Also, it is a curious kind of business, and instead of coming to the altar, as before, you will have to go into the belfry.' Be the unhappy couple readily

assented ; and on an appointed time they went to the church, and the Rector marched them into the belfry. 'You see these two trestles,' he said; the husband will have to stand upon one trestle and the wife upon the other.' Accordingly the husband, with much wonderment, stood on a trestle, and the wife did the same. 'Now, each of you take a bell-rope in your hand.' This was done. 'Now, each of you tie the bell-rope round your neck, and jump off the trestle.' 'Lor', Sir,' said one of them,

" Reminiscences o' a Literary and Clerical Life. By the Author of "Three.

Cornered Bogeys," die. 2 vols. London: Ward and Downey. 1899.

'we should be hanging ourselves !'—` Exactly,' said the Rector ; that is what I mean. The only way by which you can unmarry yourselves in church is by hanging yourselves in the belfry.' "

And this adventure of the author's own :—

" I was travelling on the Underground one evening, and I found that I was in the midst of a detachment of the Salvation Army. I was much troubled in mind whether I had taken the right train, whether I had not mistaken Notting Hill for Notting Hill

Gate 'Pray, Sir,' I said to my next neighbour, can you kindly tell me whether this train goes to Notting Hill or Notting Hill Gate?'—'Hallelujah, hallelujah !' he replied. 'We are all going to heaven.' There was a general confirmatory murmur : Hallelujah, hallelujah ! we are going to heaven. Are you going there too ?'—' I am glad to hear that you are going to heaven,' I reply; 'but are you going there by way of Notting Hill or Notting Hill Gate ?' They seemed taken aback by this, but settled my difficulty for me. They were going by Notting Hill Gate."

Some of the author's experiences in his literary career seem

to have been rather curious. It would be interesting to know if it is at all a general habit in the magazine and newspaper world for the same person to write articles in different papers contradicting each other. The idea does not commend itself to our minds, and, indeed, strikes us as destructive of honest conviction, as well as of confidence. Perhaps, in one case of which the writer of this book tells us, the motive may have made the act excusable. He had an aunt who lived to the age of ninety-four, and took an opium pill every night of her life. On this he wrote an article recommending opiates to everybody ; but the remonstrances of his friends were so earnest, that not being able to withdraw the article, he resolved to do what he could to counteract it. He therefore wrote an article in another paper denouncing the use of opiates altogether, and was generally thought to have crushed the former writer successfully.

The author was at three Universities—Glasgow, Cambridge,

and Oxford—and his account of life at each is entertaining. College stories, examination stories, in which the examiners sometimes get the worst of it, are here in plenty. To the varied acquaintance of his youth, and the enforced wandering and rather desultory work of his later life, he seems to owe a

wideness of sympathy that is apt to run beyond logical bounds. Archbishop Tait, Bishop Selwyn, Dean Stanley, Mr. J. R.

Green, the Abbe Guettee—who left the Roman Church to be

a great man among the Greeks—Mr. Muller of Bristol, Dr. Barnard°, Bishop Hannington, Mr. Rosenthal, the brothers Morley, Dean Burgon, Miss Havergal—" whether she was

really a great poetess I am not prepared to say "—M. Benner

the Protestant pastor, Mr. Spurgeon—for whom he is enthusiastic—and last, not least, the Salvation Army. In this case, at any rate, we cannot agree that "substantial good," "immense good," has been done.

To us, the most interesting parts of the book are the author's recollections of that genius who did so little in pro- portion to his powers, Charles Stuart Calverley; also of Bishop Thirlwall, of Mr. John Morley's younger days, and of such men, little known to the world in general, as Herbert Todd, a modern representative, to his friends, of the life and character of George Herbert.

Philanthropic interests have a large place in the book : evidently, if his health had permitted, the writer would have done a good deal in this way. The visiting of prisons and work- houses, convalescent homes, orphanages—of which work we will venture to say that Mr. Midler and Dr. Barnard° have not a monopoly—missions, both home and foreign; the conversion

of the Jews, the fight against infidelity, Church reform,—in

fact, there is scarcely any striking person, or popular line of thought or practice, for the last forty years, from Lord Ellen- borough and Prince Louis Napoleon to Bishop Hannington,

from the early Evangelicals to "slumming," that is not dis- coursed upon in these lively Reminiscences.

On the whole, it is certainly an amusing and original book, and possibly the confusion of thought and language which must annoy a careful reader, may pass unnoticed by the public in general. To us, for instance, the following sentences seem flatly to contradict each other :— Vol. I., p. 221.—" If with one hand M. Thiers had built up the lying Napoleonic legend, as certainly as M. Lanfrey and Messrs. Erckmann-Chatrian."

Vol. I., p. 235.—" This helped to keep alive that lying Napoleonic legend which the writings of Messrs. Erckmann- Chatria,n and of the Abb6 Lanfrey have done so much to dissipate, even in the provinces."