Playthings and Parodies. By Barry Pain. (Cassell and Co.)— Many
of these articles have already seen the light, so that we only indicate the nature of the collection. Mr. Pain's parodies are, of course, excellent; and of the five with which he commences his volume, it would be difficult to select the best. His own strokes of humour come in quite independently of the matter in hand, and have a value of their own. Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Bla,ckmore are perhaps the most finished, though it is rather cruel to select sucli a subject as eating, to play off Mr. Ruskin on. But as a parody it is excellent. In such sketches as " The Hundred Gates," we see Mr. Barry Pain at his best. In a dream, he enters a fold sur- rounded by gates, on which sit the more common and hackneyed
types of the novel-writer ; all this is very well done, and shows the skill the author has in separating fictional characters into their particular originals. "The Secular Confessional," the supposed posthumous sketches of a "First Authority," has some clever satires in it on social and personal humbugs. " Sketches in London" gives us numerous vivid descriptions of different neighbourhoods of the great city, in which Mr. Pain's humour and sometimes his wit shine. Lastly, in "Home Pets," we get a more farcical humour, but redolent of keen and witty observation, and provocative of much silent laughter.
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