- Tom Tiddier's Ground. By Florence Marryat. (Swan Sonnenschein and
Co )—The "Tom 'Fiddler's Ground" on which the writer "picked up gold and silver" was America, and in this volume she records her impressions of the country. The book is amusing from the extreme frankness of the writer, but it is written in a style that does not impress us by its veracity. According to the gazetteer, Pennsylvania is 270 miles long and 160 miles broad, and writable 44,000 square miles—i.e., is less than England alone ; according to MISS Marryat, it "covers a tract of land larger than England France, Spain, and Germany put together ;" and she relates how in rushing through the country, she " saw every other person in the railway cars" with her books in their hands. Perhaps the most striking feature of the volume is its vulgarity. The writer de- claims against the rudeness of American ladies, and says that they are on a par, in point of breeding, with our middle classes ; but there are not many English ladies of the middle class who would write with the coarseness and slang adopted by Miss Marryat, who informs us that she "has been need to mix in the highest society." She thinks the abstemiousness of American women put on, and is afraid they must have been very mach shocked at her brandies-and-sodas ; eke is thankful she saw little of American children, observing that they are doubtless "as nice as other people's brats, which is not saying much for them." She is greatly irate with an Englishwoman in America, whom she calls "Lady Z—," and remarks that any American who may have mistaken her for an English lady has yet to learn what the genus is like, adding,—" The Christy Minstrels needn't send me a free pass when next they are going to put up Lady Z—; I'd pay double price to go and see her reproduced by them." When a critic at Toronto found fault with MILE Marryat's performance, she replies to the sympathy expressed by some local admirers ;—" When my entertainment has been pro- noanced satisfactorily [sic] by the watch-dogs of London, do you suppose I should care for the yelping of a our in Toronto ? Let the poor little man alone ! Most likely he was bilious, or hungry, or his wife had been combing his hair with a three-legged stool." But Miss Marryat does not let the critic alone without adding :—" May he rest in peace, or in pieces. It really makes no difference to me which." Enough of a book which, though not without ability, is far from creditable to the knowledge, taste, and good-feeling of the author.
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