4 JULY 1891, Page 31

Bunny Stories. By James Payn. (Chatto and Windns.)—Mr. Payn ingeniously

makes up his volume of fiction and fact, and so sets off each by the other. The fiction is perhaps the more amusing, Mr. Payn, as our readers can scarcely fail to know, having a very pretty gift of humour ; the fact certainly bears out its proverbial reputation of being the more strange. "Dauntless Kitty" is a particularly entertaining story; so is "A Cheap Tour," though it must be owned that neither of them points a moral with any effect. "Modern Amazons," in the other section of the volume, is perhaps the most curious. We may mention also an interesting discussion of certain historical riddles in " Was King Charles Hung in Chains ? " and a strange leaf out of the records of crime in " Fraudulent Bankruptcy."