PENELOPE'S EXPERIENCES.* TgESE are not new 'bOoks. The first appeared
seven years ago, and hat reached an eighth edition, the second, More fortu- nate thaii–eolitiniuttions are commonly reputed. to be, ha a far outstripped lie predeceSsor, and 'has counted nine editions in the course of little more than two years. The Spectator has somehow missed the opportunity of doing them justice. Anyhow, the Oki-'volumes now before us appear with the added attrietion - of seine admirable illustrations by Mr. Charles E: Bkrook: Jenelope -is one _ of- trio of American ladies who are visiting the Old Country, an artist by profession and the Chronicler of the Party. The scene opens at a London and the action continues at the same place, with an oecasional change to Hyde Park and other localities of the Metropolis, . till it is transferred to " Belvern," one village ivitial many differentiating names, Old and New, East and !West; (inst.:and Little, which . no one will have any difficulty in identifying with its original.. The best of the . Landon portion is the " Ball on ,,the Opposite Side." An empty house that faces the hotel has been taken for a week by some great society people who are giving a ball, and the three with their friends exercise a. livery imagination in fitting the party with a fannly history, and each member of it—there are; besides the father and mother and the dowager, three daughters and two nieces—with a romantic little story of her own. It is. an admirable sample of literary :" trifle," the -slightest materials whipped up, so to speak, into_a verypretty and tasty dish. In the "Belvern" portion we should like to give half a column to 'Jane,' the donkey, a delightful specimen of the creature which discerns with lightning-like rapidity its driver's purpose and does the opposite, and **other to Penelope's stupendous commercial success inp,r.ovidin,g for. Belvern tea-parties ; but we must hasten on "to the Scottish experiences. These are so good as fully to justify the more liberal appreciation which the -public has manifested for them. Scottish people are creffited, Whether rightly or wrongly we do not venture to say, with an indifferent sense of humour. But it can hardly be doubted but that their speech and ways in general lend them- selves with much readiness to the making of humour in others. Penelope keeps us continuously amused with little things which somehow when out of their context seem to lose as much as beach pebbles lose when they are dry. Our readers- must go • Penelopc's Bnglish .Bexorienceo. By gate Douglas wision. London: Gay and Bird. Ka]—Penelope's Experiences in Scotland. Same Author and 1'1* Mom [6a] and look at them in their proper place. They must make acquaintance, for instance, with Susanna Crum, the cautious handmaiden, with her everlasting "I eudna. say, Manz," once, and once only, varied by the admission, "It depends," an effort of confident assertion so exhausting that she was of no use for the rest of the day. Then there are the townsfolk of Pettybaw (Petitboi-s, as Penelope, with a remem- brance of the old French connection, learnedly suggests), with their intense interest, only limited by their native politeness, in the ways of their visitors. There is also Jane Grieve, sister's husband's niece to the trio's Edinburgh landlady, whom they engage by telegraph, and picture to themselves as a young lass with rosy cheeks and yellow hair, and who turns out to be—but our readers must see her as Mr. Brock shows her toiling up from the station with the decrepit step of age. And there is the weather, inexhaustible source of amusement when one is away, but not, perhaps, quite so amusing on the spot. "Wonderful blest in weather, we are, Ma'am," observes the grocer to Penelope, because though the rain was falling in torrents, there was not wind enough to turn an umbrella inside out. If we are asked whether there is anything more solid, more of the substance that goes to make up a tale, we may answer that there are two love stories. Penelope has her own, and she tells it very nicely, and Francesca, who is at once the beauty and the heiress of the party, has hers. Her lover is a Scottish minister, and their courtship is carried on, to quote what Linns3us said of the cats, claraanclo et rixanclo. A battle- royal about the comparative merits of the United States and Scotland brings things to a crisis. She taunts him with the fact that though there are hundreds of Browning Clubs in America, there is not one in Scotland. He retorts by saying that there is "a good deal in belonging to a people who can understand him without clubs." That drives her to her last entrenchments, and she cries. "What did he do then ? " asks her sympathising companion. "Why do you say do ' ? " she replies. Mr. Brook's humour is, of course, more impossible to transfer than Mrs. Wiggins's. This, too, our readers must go and see.
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