27 JULY 1867, Page 22

Mrs. Brown's Visit to the Paris Exhibition. By Arthur Sketchley.

(Routledge.)—Mrs. Brown is rather amusing at first, but there is too much of her, and she is decidedly wanting in variety. This kind of thing has been done very often, and the latest phase of it is not the best. A vulgar fat old Englishwoman going to Paris, and not knowing a word of French, not appreciating anything she sees, and not seeing anything she understands, quarrelling with foreigners for not being English, and with her husband for being her husband, is not a pleasing sight, either in art or nature. And her sentences, though absurdly ungrammatical, pall on us very soon, even if the absurdity is kept up with some literary skill, or if the matter is more enduring than' the manner. Mr. Arthur Sketchley is too easily contented.