OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
Sketch of a Review. The March of Intellect.
A Secret Inheritance is the title of Mr. B. L. Farjeon's latest, and only not his best, Romance, because his others have all been as absorbingly interesting and as exciting as this. Yet because in this the author adheres strictly to the point, without any carpenters' scenes, of humour, which are distracting and irritating, I am inclined to set this down as the best of all Mr. Farjeon's,—in fact,—the best-by-Far-jeon. He is, for many reasons, better than Boisgobey.
In an admirably got up and well-arranged Jubilee volume about Pope Leo the Thirteenth, by John Oldcastle, we find an item of information which may be advantageously recommended to Emperors, Empresses, Monarchs of all they survey, Princes, Lord Mayors, and Aldermen. It is "the Pope's dinner." Listen, "A few minutes suffices for its consumption." "He does not spend a hundred francs a month for his table." Not one pound a week! Not three shillings a day on his food, wine included! He dines "at two o'clock: his mid-day meal lasts not longer than half-an-hour, and is very frugal, consisting of soup, one kind of meat, two dishes of vegetables, some fruit, and, by the doctor's orders, a glass of claret." His supper at 9.30 consists of "soup, an egg, and some salad." Is there a Radical living who could tax the Pope's bill of fare as exorbitant?
The Red Spider, by the Author of Mehalah, &c., is the Un-read Spider as far as I am concerned, for I could not manage to get through it, and I did try.
Book Worm.