Pocket-books for next year are coming in. Which for choice? "Solvitur ambulando" should be the resolution of the difficulty, given by one firm at least, that firm being "WALKER." They are handy, and conveniently pocketable, but to "The chiels amang ye taking notes," plain leaves, and no fruit, and no dates, we should say, would be preferable. They're reasonable prices, and you can't expect to get 'em for nothing; if you do—"WALKER!"
The Baron highly approves of Messrs. DE LA RUE's pocket-books. It is pleasant to have something in one's pocket, even if only a book. As to account-books and diaries—well enter nothing therein but what has been pleasant and profitable, and most diarians who adopt this rule will not find their memoranda overcrowded at the end of the year. "Letts be happy, while we can, and good luck to you, Ladies all, in 1892. Leap year!" quoth the Baron. "Over you go like the villagers in the German story, after the sheep, into the sea of matrimony, where may you all get on swimmingly." À propos, Mesdames BLYTHE and GAY say that the Christmas Number of Woman, produced by a number of women, is as full of attractive power as the Magnetic Lady herself.
"ARROWSMITH's Shilling Sensational, by 'a New Author,'" quoth the Baron, "would, methought, serve pour me distraire." The "New Author" uses the remarkably new device of a mole on the lost child's breast. Isn't that original? Miss Box and Miss Cox are lost, and found. "Have you a mole on your left breast?" "Yes!" "Then it is both of you!" Charming! So useful is the explanation that "Hanwell is a little village, a few miles from London." Perhaps it is the locality, there or thereabouts, where this thrillingly interesting tale—which could have been told in fifty pages, and needn't have been told at all—was written. Well, well, "All's Hanwell that ends Hanwell," and "I've galloped through a worse story before now," quoth the Baron, yawning, and so to bed.
In John Leech, His Life and Work (BENTLEY) Mr. FRITH quotes from an anonymous but obviously not an original authority, the dictum, "It is the happiness of such a life (as LEECH's) that there is so little to be told of it." Mr. BENTLEY has produced two handsome volumes worthy the reputation of his ancient and honourable house. They enshrine admirable reproductions of some of LEECH's best work, selected by the trained hand and sympathetic eye of Mr. FRITH. These are and will remain the chief attractions of a work to which the Baron, in common with the civilised world, has been looking forward to with interest, and of whose realisation he regrets to hear so disappointing an account from his trusty "Co." It is difficult to find dates in this higgledy-piggledy chance-medley of facts and opinions. But we all know that LEECH died in October, 1864. It was in Mr. Punch's pages that he found the true field for his heaven-born genius For twenty years at least he was one of the most prominent, best known, and best liked men in England. Surely within that period there must lie to the hand of the dilligent seeker material for a memoir worthy to be linked with the name of JOHN LEECH. Mr. FRITH has not given us such a book, and criticism is only partly disarmed by the comical reiteration of confession that he has failed in his appointed task. For what he has to say in the way of making known to the world the man JOHN LEECH, a very thin volume would have sufficed, even had he included the more useful of his remarks on LEECH's work and his method. But there being two volumes to fill, Mr. FRITH genially summarises The Physiology of Evening Parties, by Mr. ALBERT SMITH; Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour, and other not very high-class literature, whose only claim to being remembered is that LEECH illustrated them. Of The Marchioness of Brinvilliers, ALBERT SMITH's attempt to rival the attractions of the Newgate Calendar, Mr. FRITH positively gives two whole chapters! He allots one to the Bon Gaultier Ballads, and nineteen mortal pages to telling the Story of Miss Kilmansegg, with copious extracts from that easily accessible work.
This is not Memoir-writing, it is book-making. The reader can skip these chapters, and, diligently searching, will find here and there a ray of light thrown on this beautiful placid life, weighed down as it was from earliest manhood by family circumstances at which Mr. FRITH delicately hints. "Give, give!" was, truly, the cry of the daughters of the horseleach. There are, however, several other anecdotes contributed by personal friends of LEECH's, who have come to Mr. FRITH's assistance, and succeed in the main in making the book an interesting one, as giving the outside world some glimpses of a sweet and manly character. The volumes are crowded with illustrations. These are LEECH's own work, and make the volumes worth more than their published price.
THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS & CO.