In My City Garden. By George Umber. (Alexander Gardner.)
—The " City " in which the "Garden" lies is, we suppose, Glasgow, for such we take to be meant by the " Western Babylon" (? to be so distinguished from the Eastern, which, however, com- monly calls itself Athens). Mr. Umber discourses about it, about its associations, and, perhaps we should add, about things in general in a pleasant way and with not a little good sense. He has not quite caught the lightness of touch which the best essay writing requires. Of positive defects, the most serious is the want of humour. Of this quality, indispensable if we are to have the essay at its best, we can see but few traces. But of sound and sober judgment we have many evidences. Mr. Umber, for instance, is quite right when he says, " It is not the business of the Church or the pulpit at the present day, whatever it once was, to furnish us with our intellectual equipment." Yet how common the delusion that it is ! People complain if the ordinary clergyman is not as clever and well-informed as a leader-writer in a London newspaper of the first class. And they forget that there are more than twenty thousand of them, and that they are paid, on an average, a good deal less than £200 a year. On various themes of common life, books, children, the relations of rich and poor, and so forth, the author has much that is readable to say.
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