Belles and Ringers. By Captain Hawley Smart. (Chapman and Hall.)—The
title of this book, Belles and Ringers, is an elegant and facetious paraphrase for "young ladies, and the gentlemen who wish to marry them," though why any gentleman should wish to marry any of the young ladies here described, or why anybody ever wished to marry the young ladies' mothers, passes one's comprehension. It would be difficult to find two more perfect specimens of vulgarity, in their several generations, than Lady Mary Bloxam and Miss Syne Chipchase. In matters connected with sport, however, we have hitherto been accustomed to some degree of accuracy from Captain Smart, and therefore we learn with the utmost astonishment: with how little trouble or preparation great pedestrian feats may be performed. At the military games at the Camp at--, Jim Bloxam, one of the heroes of the story, gaily enters himself one night for the quarter-
of-a-mile race, and utterly untrained is represented as running a good second in a large field of athletes who had got themselves fit for the occasion ; while Lionel Beauchamp, at a moment's notice, takes off coat and waiscoat, borrows a pair of running shoes, and in a match over the same distance beats the champion of the camp in a canter. It is not expected of every accomplished man of the world that he should be able to construe Latin, but as Mr. Pansy Cottrell did under- take to translate " Loquaces si sapiat vitet," he need not have said " If you are wise, you will avoid," &c.
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