"You've a lot to learn about navicular, you 'ave, if you can talk such rot as that!"
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
"Aha!" quoth the Baron. "This book of Master Stanley Weyman's, called Under the Red Robe, delighteth me much. A stirring story of swashbucklers, pistols, daggers, conspirators, gay gallants, and gentle dames! Exciting from first to last, and all in one volume, which, beshrew me, by my hilts!" quoth the Baron, "the reader, be he who he may, will find easy to take up, and most difficult to put down, until quite finished. 'Tis published by one Methuen, of London, whose house Cavalier Weyman hath favoured more than once ere he wrote this stirring romance." Towards the finish there is a spice of Bulwer Lytton's drama Richelieu,—indeed the last situation in this tale is almost one with the action of the scene in the play where Richelieu brings the lovers together. Yet is this but a mere detail, and those who follow the Baron's literary tips will do well and wisely to read Under the Red Robe. By the way, Mr. Caton Woodville's illustrations to the story are excellent, having the rare merit of assisting the action without revealing the plot. "Caton, thou pictureth well."
Within the limits of a hundred pages Lord Dufferin has given the world a picture it will not willingly let die. It is a portrait of his mother, "one of the sweetest, most beautiful, most accomplished, wittiest, most loving and lovable human beings that ever walked upon the earth." This, as my Baronite says, is the superlative of praise, and it might reasonably be suspected that filial feeling has warped critical acumen. But here in this volume of Songs, Poems, and Verses (John Murray) we have Lady Dufferin though dead yet speaking, and may judge for ourselves. It is characteristic of her son that, whilst on the first page the above title is boldly set forth in large ruddy-hued type, a smaller line lower down, in plain black ink, refers to the "Memoir." In its felicity of literary style, its clear touches of characterisation, and its flashes of quiet humour, this monograph is a masterpiece. It fittingly frames the extract from the journal commenced by Lady Dufferin when she felt the hand of death gripping her. This fragment is prose worthy of the author of The Irish Emigrant, whose simple pathos has stirred the heart on both sides of the Atlantic. Within the brief limits he has assigned to himself, Lord Dufferin manages to give a succinct account of the illustrious family of which Helen, Lady Dufferin, was a bright, particular star. It would be difficult to parallel the sustained brilliancy of the Sheridans, from Richard Brinsley down to his great-great-grandson, at present Her Majesty's Minister at Paris. To the possession of all the graces they have added display of all the talents. It is hard to live up to the literary standard of the Sheridans. In this delightful volume Lord Dufferin shows that the marvel was accomplished by his mother, and is possible for himself.
My Baronite has made an attempt to read Lourdes in the convenient shape in which Messrs. Chatto and Windus present it to the English-speaking public. He honestly admits that, finding on a rapid glance through its pages the first chapter was a fair sample of the bulk, he gave it up. M. Zola has avowedly set himself the task of minutely describing the pitiful experience of the halt, the lame, the blind, and much worse, who journey to Lourdes in the desperate hope of miraculous recovery. He may at least be congratulated on having achieved his object. Only, the report with all its horrible detail would more fittingly have appeared in the pages of the Lancet or the British Medical Journal. Since it has been published in book form realism should have been carried one step further. The volume ought to have been bound in a poultice instead of ordinary cloth. As it is, the leaves turned over fill the room with faint, sickening smell of the hospital ward. Lourdes is certainly not alluring. It is, in truth, lourd—et sale aussi.
Once again, for the benefit of all brother-scribes who, for a while, or frequently, may have to do their scribbling when journeying, or while compelled by illness to remain in Bedford-under-Clothes,—as was but recently the case with your own Baronius, pains and counterpanes all over him,—the use of "The Hairless Author's Paper-pad," i.e. "The Author's Hairless Paper-pad," issued by the Leadenhall Press, on which the author can write with pencil or with pen,—for the blotter is handily placed at the back of the pad,—is strongly recommended by the Ready Writer's and Ready Reader's best friend,
The blameless Baron de Book-Worms.