Mr. Browne's stories of what he saw in Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland have that variety ascribed by Mr. Tennyson to the imitations of his poetry,—
"And some are pretty enough,
And some are poor indeed."
It is this traveller's aim to keep his reader constantly amused, and to produce broad grins and other broad effects at any cost. Naturally the peoples whom he visits, his readers, and the author himself, all suffer a good deal together, and do not so often combine in hearty, unforced laughter as could be wished. This is the more a pity because Mr. Browne is a genuine humorist, and must be very sorry to fatigue anybody. In his less boisterous moments he is really charming, and, in spite of all his liveliness, he does give some clear ideas of the lands he sees. It appears to us that the travels through Iceland are the best in his book, as the account of Russia is decidedly the dullest,—the Scandinavian countries of the main-land lying midway between these extremes, as they do on the map. Of solid information, such as the old-fashioned travellers used to give us in honest figures and statistics, there is very little in this book, which is the less to be regretted because we already know everything now-a-days. The work is said to be "illustrated by the author"; but as most of the illustrations bear the initials of Mr. Stephens, we suppose this statement is also a joke. We confess that we like such of Mr. Browne's sketches as are given the best: there at least all animate life is not rendered with such a sentiment that cats and dogs, and men and women, might well turn with mutual displeasure from the idea of a common origin of their species.
Half-Tints. Table d'Hôte and Drawing-Room. New York; D. Appleton & Co.
Here is the side which our polygonous human nature presents to the observer in a great New York hotel. Throngs of coming and going strangers, snubbingly accommodated by the master of the caravansary, who seeks to make it rather the home of the undomestic rich than the sojourning-place of travel; the hard faces of the ladies in the drawing-room; the business talk of the men of the gentlemen's parlor; the twaddle of the jejune youngsters of either sex in the dining-room; and individual characters among all these,—are the features of hotel-life from which the author turns to sketch the exchange, the street, the fashionable physician, and the modish divine, or to moralize desultorily upon themes suggested by his walks between his hotel and his office. The manner of the book is colloquial; and the author, addressing an old friend, seeks a relief and contrast for the town atmosphere of his work in recurring reminiscences of a youth and childhood passed in the purer air of the country. Some of his sketches are caricatured, some of his pictures rather crudely colored; but at other times he is very skilful, and generally his tone is pleasant, and in the chapters, "Not a Sermon," "And so forth," and "Out of the Window," there is shrewd observation and sound thought.