In Cheyne Walk and Thereabout. By Reginald Blunt, (Mills and
Boon. 10s. Gd. net.)—Mr. Blunt knows his Chelsea, well, and gossips pleasantly about its eminent inhabitants io; the past. But we shall do him no injustice if we say that the gem of his book is the chapter which includes some charac- teristic letters of Mrs. Carlyle to her housemaid, Jessie Heddleetone. These letters are in Mrs. Carlyle's best style-- and if there ever was a more entertaining letter-writer in this country, we should be glad to know more about him or. her. The famous letter about Carlyle's cat—the "selfish, immoral, improper beast" that spoilt the carpets—has been printed before, but it can never be read too often. Mr. Blunt tells us. that Carlyle was a hero to his housemaid, who writes :—"I could have lived with him all my days, and it always makes me angry when I read, as I sometimes do, that he was bad- tempered' and gey ill to get on with!_. He was the very reverse, in my opinion. I never would have left him when I did had I not been going to get married. . . . He always was so grateful for these little -services." This is a useful set-off to Mrs. Carlyle's atrabilious "slrrewings."
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