"Duke Domurn." (Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.)—If the author of
this book is not a country squire, it must be allowed that he assumes the manner with much skill. His grievances are exactly each as our experience, and where experience does not reach, our imagination, would suggest as being such as a country squire might be expected to air. He is a little too cynical, a little too apt to exaggerate. Things do not always tarn out quite so badly as he describes. Misfortunes, happily for mankind, do not accumulate at the rate which he represents. If all that could happen together did happen together, life would be simply unendurable. However this may be, "Duke Domes, " is an amusing book. Here is a specimen, of which few of those who entertain even in the humblest way will fail to recognise the truth " We must not conclude without a word on the constantly recurring difficulty of getting our friends to go off to bed. When wearily sitting up with our guests in the smoking-room to abnormal hours, how anxiously we watch their cigars becoming shorter and shorter ! and how mortifying it is, when we think that the happy moment has at last arrived, and that we are to be allowed to retire to rest, to see them calmly light fresh cigars before throwing away the ends of the old ones !" The troubles of hospitality are, indeed, described with especial force ; and if we get nothing else from the book, we any- how gather a consolation for poverty from seeing the woes of the rich.
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