A Servant o' John Company : being the Recollections of
an Indian Official. By H. G. Keene, C.I.E., 4k.c. Illustrated by W. Simpson, R.I., from Original Sketches by the Author. (W. Thacker and Co., London ; Thacker, Spink, and Co., Calcutta. 12s.)—A pleasant enough addition to the literature of "Reminiscences." Mr. Keene is gifted with a certain fluency and facility which make his work eminently readable, and his matter, which is chiefly confined to the surface of things, requires no intellectual effort from those who peruse it. With these qualities in its favour, it follows that a book which deals, in its earlier parts, with a state of things long vanished, will while away an hour or two very comfortably. Its egotism is a little annoying, but criticism on this point is disarmed by a frank confession and warning in the preface. Plenty of anecdotes, many of them none the worse for being old, enliven the narrative. Bishop Daniel Wilson's habit of pointing his dis- course with a personal application is illustrated by an example that is worth quoting. "The worthy diocesan took 'Praise' for the subject of his discourse. 'I would have you to know,' he said,
• that praise is as much a duty of divine service as prayer. You might take example by the wife of your Brigade-Major, whom I have observed prominent this morning in conducting your psalmody.' Here ensued a momentary pause, during which the preacher saw, or thought he saw, a certain bridling on the lady's part, as who should say, His Lordship refers to me.' Without movement or change of voice the Bishop proceeded to check any tendency to vaingloriousness by the cool corollary, 'To be sure, her singing was not remarkable, but, like Mary Magdalene, she bath done what she could.' "
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