OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
"Bring me my books!" said the Baron, not for the first time. But on this occasion the Baron was a prisoner in bed, and likely to remain so for many days. Consequently, he required amusement. He had heard of a book, called Three Men in a Boat, by Mr. Jerome K. Jerome, some of whose observations, in a collection of papers entitled Stage-land, had caused him to laugh several times, and to smile frequently, for the subject has not been so well touched since Gilbert Abbott à Beckett wrote his inimitable Quizziology of the Drama, which for genuine drollery has never been surpassed. Anticipating, then, some side-splitters from Three Men in a Boat, the Baron sent for the work. He opened it with a chuckle, which, instead of developing itself into a guffaw and then into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, gradually subsided altogether, his smile vanished, and an expression of weariness came over the Baron's face, as after heroically plodding through five chapters he laid the book down, and sighed aloud, "Well, I'm hanged if I see where the fun of this is." The Baron may be wrong, and the humour of this book, which seems to him to consist in weak imitations of American fun, and in conversations garnished with such phrases as "bally idiot," "bally tent," "doing a mouch," "boss the job," "put a pipe in his mouth, and spread himself over a chair," "land him with a frying-pan," "fat-headed chunk," "who the thunder" and so forth—a style the Baron believes to have been introduced from Yankee-land, and patented here by the Sporting Times and its imitators,—interspersed with plentiful allusions to whiskey-drinking, may not be, as it is not, to his particular taste; and yet, for all that, it may be marvellously funny. So the Baron requested an admirer of this book to pick out the gems, and read them aloud to him. But even the admirer was compelled to own that the gems did not sparkle so brilliantly as he had at first thought. "Yet," observed the admirer, "it has had a big sale." "Three Men in a Boat ought to have," quoth the Baron, cheerily, and then he called aloud, "Bring me Pickwick!" He commenced at the Review, and the first meeting of Mr. Pickwick with the Wardle family. Within five minutes the Baron was shaking with spasmodic laughter, and Charles Dickens's drollery was as irresistible as ever. Of course the Baron does not for one moment mean to be so unfair to the Three Men in a Boat as to institute a comparison between it and the immortal Pickwick, but he has heard some young gentlemen, quite of the modern school, who profess themselves intensely amused by such works as this, and as the two books by the author of Through Green Glasses, and yet allow that they could not find anything to laugh at in Pickwick. They did not object to Pickwick, as ladies very often do, that there is so much eating and drinking in it. "No," says the Baron, in bed, "Give me my Pickwick, and, after him, for a soothing and pleasant companion, give me Washington Irving. When I'm in another sort of humour, bring me Thackeray. For rollicking Irish life, give me Lever. But as to youth-about-town life of the present day, I do not know of any second-class humorist who approaches within measurable distance of the author of The Pottleton Legacy, in the past." So far the Baron. And now "The Co." speaks:—
A Tour in a Phaëton, by J. J. Hissey, is an interesting account of a driving trip through the Eastern Counties. It abounds in hisseytorical research; we are taken to all kinds of out-of-the-way and picturesque places, of which the Author gives us graphic pictures with pencil as well as pen. A fresher title to the work might have been devised, as the present one bears a striking likeness to Mr. Black's Adventures of a Phaëton,—who, by the way, was the first to render driving tours popular. The volume abounds in poetical quotations. The authority, however, is seldom given, and inverted commas are conspicuous by their absence. It can hardly be imagined that all this poetry is by the writer of the book. In one instance he quotes a well-known verse by Ashby-Sterry, without acknowledgment, in which, for some inscrutable reason, he has introduced a rugged final line which effectually mars the harmony of the original stanza.
Those who prefer Scotch broth well peppered to Butter-Scotch, should read Our Journey to the Hebrides, by Mr. and Mrs. Pennell. They seem to have gone out of the beaten track in their tour, which is pleasant, and their views of Scotland, though they may cause controversy, are novel, and at the same time indescribably refreshing. As to the views of Scotland chronicled by Mr. Pennell's clever and facile pencil, they are full of thought, elaborate detail and wondrous originality. There are some forty of these, all remarkable for their everlasting variety and high artistic excellence.
Dr. Hermione (Blackwood) is rather an idyl than a novel, and would have done better still if it had been cast in the form of a comedy. The still anonymous author who followed up Zit and Zoë by Lady Bluebeard possesses the gift, rare among novelists, of writing sparkling dialogue. The quickly changing scenes in the last chapter of Dr. Hermione, with its sprightly chatter would serve the poor player almost as it stands. It is not too late to think about the comedy. In the meanwhile the novel does very well, and if he had made his story a book for the play, we should have missed many dainty descriptions of scenery. Nothing is so good as his description of the Lake District in Autumn, unless it be his pictures of the surroundings of the Nile as it
Flows through hushed old Egypt and its sands,
Like some grave mighty thought, threading a dream.
Some Places of Note in England (Dowdeswells) have been deftly noted by a notable artist, namely, Birket Foster. From the "places of note," he has evolved some of the most delicate of harmonies. Whether he gives us a Canterbury cantata, a Richmond rondo, a Stratford symphony, a Lambeth lied, or a Tilbury toccata we are equally delighted with his choice of motivo and his brilliancy of execution. In this volume we have five-and-twenty pictures, admirably reproduced in the highest style of lithography. Mr. Birket Foster has been before the public for many years—he appeared, if we mistake not, in the early numbers of the Illustrated News: his work has been constant, and his pictures countless ever since, and yet, in the present volume, we find him better than ever.
Sporting Celebrities. The first number of this new monthly contains two excellent portraits by M. Walery. One is of the Duke of Beaufort, the other of Mr. Cholmondeley Pennell. They are accompanied by crisp well-written biographical notices. The two portraits are well worth the price charged for the Magazine. A couple of good photographs for a shilling, cannot be considered dear. In addition to this, there are twenty pages of letterpress—so altogether it is a splendid shillingsworth. Baron de Book-Worms & Co.