To Several Correspondents.—"Fox the Quaker." It is not true that the birthday of this excellent man is celebrated in his native place by an annual "meet." Fox was occasionally hunted, but though a Quaker, it is not on record that he ever quaked. Our Correspondents' mistake arises probably from Fox having been a man of pax. But in this case his memory would be honoured by all card-players.
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
There is no better form of book, providing always the print be clear and distinct, than the volume which is adapted practically in price and size to the pocket. One man's pocket is more capacious than another's, as one man's purse is longer than another's, and the latter can purchase a volume more expensively got up than the small, useful, charming travelling companions that Mr. Punch has at this moment actually in view while others are in his mind's eye, Horatio. The Handy-Volume Shakspeare (Bradbury, Agnew, & Co.), which in every way is the model of a pocket-volume, the model par excellence, is a member of a family all in one case, a perfect Christmas present. But if one volume is lost, the set is spoilt, and the missing book cannot, in the ordinary course of bookselling nature, be replaced. Consequently only a very careful and methodical person can venture upon travelling about with one of these volumes as his pocket-companion. A little Shakespeare is a dangerous thing. And this is why the small books belonging to Cassell's National Library, price threepence apiece, ought to find favour in the eyes of those who can read in a cab, in a coach, in a train, or even walking. As to a man running and reading the thing's almost impossible, and whoever saw a man on horseback reading a book, except in an old print of Doctor Syntax? As the snail carries his shell about with him, so every Englishman can carry his own Cassell, and get rid of it too—which is more than the snail can—and can lose it—and can replace it for the small sum of threepence, or if secondhand (for being in limp covers they soon become "secondhand" in appearance) for considerably less. With a volume from this library carried always in the tail-pocket of his coat—the very place to carry a short tale—no one need ever be idle, and every spare moment, as long as he is wearing the coat, can be well occupied. These bits of books are our modern Curiosities of Literature.
Handy Vols.
Nor must we forget the Dickens series of Messrs. Routledge, who have just brought out a dainty little edition of the Cricket on the Hearth. This is a lasting work got up in a lasting manner. And so whether the tale be long, or short, pointed or not, every man for a small sum, in some instances a very small sum, can be his own talebearer: only the tale isn't his, it is somebody else's, but his by purchase.
Among the handiest of handy books must be included the Pocket Diaries for 1888, numbered, respectively, one, two, three,—of which No. 3 is "A1,"—brought out by John Walker & Co. of Farringdon House, and admirably adapted to all walkers, who can now bring them out for themselves every day in the new year. One novelty there is in Walker & Co.'s division of pages, and this is that two are set apart for "Addresses"—not political ones, of course—and two others for "Visits"—(such an idea could only have struck a Walker who wanted an object for his walk)—these being subdivided into columns headed "Name," "Reception Day," "Visit Received," "Visit Returned," which in itself is quite a little manual, or Walker's Dictionary, of politeness. To "Cash" is devoted a great deal too much space; but, of course, if there is sufficient cash to fill it, so much the better. If we might suggest a "rider" to Walker, it would be that, as many persons, who pay nothing else, are often most assiduous in "paying their addresses" and in "paying visits," an equal space might be given to business as represented by "Cash," and to pleasure as represented by the two other items. The pencil is a triumph of ingenuity, and the binding of No. 3 proves the truth of the old adage, that there is nothing like leather, specially when the leather is Russian.