One Thousand and One Anecdotes. Arranged and edited by Alfred
H. Miles. (Hutchinson and Co.)—It might be said that one book of anecdotes differs very little from another. Lot it be moderately fresh and brought up to date, so to speak, and we are content. Mr. Miles has added the attraction of what seems an effective arrangement. He begins his collection by "Anecdotes of Famous Wits" (Sheridan, Foote, Sydney Smith, Charles Lamb, Douglas Jerrold, Thomas Hood), and goes on to "Famous Com- posers," and a great variety of other headings, among which the Drama, Courtship and Marriage, the Pulpit and the Pew, and Schools may be noticed. Hood, strangely enough, is represented, at least under his own name, by one joke only. No man had a more spontaneous gift of humour, not "always of a quiet sort," as Mr. Miles affirms, and sometimes quite remote from "the source of tears." Talleyrand does not appear among the wits. Perhaps Mr. Miles cannot trust his readers knowing enough of French. Otherwise there is a fineness about his wit which it is difficult for us to rival. What could be better than what he said to the dull fellow who bragged that his mother was a beauty P " C'Utait done monsieur votre pbre qui n'etait pas si bien P" Of course, one is bound to find in a volume of this kind things left out that seem better worthy of a place than some that are put in ; but, as a whole, the volume is certainly to be commended.
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