OUR BOOKING OFFICE.
Monarchs I Have Met, by Beatty Kingston (Chapman & Hall), is a title which recalls the old story in Smith's Irish Diamonds, and reproduced in another form by Charles Lever, of the little crossing-sweeper who ran home to his mother and recounted how he had met William the Fourth. "Mother, sure I've met the King this mornin'! An' he spoke to me!!" "Did he now? Bless his Majesty! An' what might the King have said to yez, Patsy?" "What did he say to me, is it? Sure, he said, 'Get out of the way, ye dirty little blackguard!'" Not that the Monarchs were so rude to Mr. Beatty Kingston, whose entertaining society was rather thrust on the Monarchs by his employers than sought by the Royal Personages themselves. If Mr. Kingston was entertaining in one sense, so were the Monarchs in another. The first volume is especially festive. Within the first 183 pages there is more eating and drinking than in any other book I can call to mind since Pickwick. These pages must be not only read, but well digested. The writer congratulates himself on "not having let anything escape him;" and certainly nothing eatable or drinkable seems to have done so. He seems to be always smacking his lips over reminiscences of the savory and the succulent—"Savory and More" should be his motto—and it is sad to record that apparently—but I trust I am mistaken in my deduction—he glories in iced champagne, which is rank heresy, and an abomination to the true epicure. His stories are told in an amusing, rough-and-ready, barrack-like, swaggery-Germany-soldiery style; and rien n'est sacré pour un sapeur. He witnesses the ceremony of anointing the King of Hungary, and describes the function as the Primate "oiling" his Majesty, as if the latter were having his locks Macassar'd, and the Archbishop were the hair-dresser. Mr. Beatty Kingston, according to the Book of B. K., or "the B. of B. K.," seems to have been generally entertained in the "most sumptuous manner" wherever he went in Germany and Hungary—he is very German, and always very Hung'ry—and writes of his sojourn in these countries with a full heart. Then, in the second volume, he finds himself in Rome, where there was "nothing fit to eat," "food bad," "cookery abominable, and the wine worst of all." If the perusal of the first part of the B. of B. K. causes many a mouth to water, his wretched plight in the second will draw tears from the eyes of the least sympathetic. He complains,—indeed, it is his first and most important grievance,—"Imprimis, there was not a bit of clear ice to be had in the Eternal City. Whatever liquid was cooled at all had to be inserted in salt snow." What a cruel hardship for any man to bear, especially a rollicking epicure who revels in "Roederer carte blanche of Alpine coldness." However, there was a good deal for him to swallow in Rome, and for lack of better food, he seems to have taken it in with all the alacrity of a dutiful Special with an appetite for gossip. The book finishes with less solid eating, but there is smoking perfumed golden tobacco, preserve-tasting, hot coffee drinking, an interesting account of Lesseps, and also of Prince Michael of Servia. Altogether, these are the volumes of a Voluble Voyager, containing the amusing tales of a Talkative Traveller, who can run on by the hour, with no one on the spot to interrupt or contradict him.
I received, some time since, a charming little book, daintily bound in vellum, called The Joyous Neighbourhood of Covent Garden, for which I have to thank Mr. Charles Eyre Pascoe. It is styled "a literary souvenir," and, I fancy, is not intended for publication. It was brought out early this year, but at the time of its first appearance I did not see it. If still unpublished, it is to be hoped that it will not remain so for long. His account of Evans's in the days of Paddy Green must revive in not a few of us whose memory is still "green," the reminiscences of many a cheery evening, though Mr. Pascoe seems only to have visited Evans's when it was enlarged, and not in the good stuffy old days, when Paddy Green himself took the chair. The author says that Mr. John Green was "the personification of a stout, cheery, open-hearted, kindly English landlord." Not "English, you know"—"Paddy" Green could not well be that, though he might, I admit, "personify" the character. Anyone wishing to learn as much as he can possibly carry away with him at a sitting should get Mr. Pascoe's book, and if it is not published, I only wish he may get it.
In the Dublin Review (Burns and Oates) for this quarter, there is a most interesting review of the various Jewish and anti-Jewish books, which within the last two years have made a considerable stir on the Continent, especially in France. The Ancient Hebrew Race are, it appears, to possess the earth,—ultimately. In all persons with a spark of genius, nay even with only a talent for music, for drama, for any art whatsoever, there is—nay, say some enthusiastic Judaizers, there must be—Jewish blood. Most Christians will be inclined to grant the artfulness of the race, traditionally. The Jews claim every great Genius. At this, Mr. Punch will put his finger to his nose, and meditate whether he too has not his share in the damnosey hæreditas. A footnote to the article quotes G. de Pascal as stating that, "Cromwell proposed to sell Ireland to the Jews for 2,000,000 sterling a year." Then why didn't he do it? Because the Jews wouldn't buy it, I suppose. If they had, at this present time the English Government would have been dealing with the O'Rothschilds, the O'Levys, and so forth, and on the National flag, the Harp of Erin would have become the Jews' Harp. That Shakspeare was a Jew, and that his real name was Moses, is a theory which the notes of the new edition of Shakspeare, now being brought out by Messrs. Henry Irving and Frank Marshall, will probably go some way towards establishing.
Your Own Baron de Book Worms.