The Romance of Life Preservation. By James Burnley. (W. H.
Allen.)—It fell to us some time ago to speak very cordially of Mr. Burnley's "Romance of Invention." It is an equally pleasing duty to refer not less eulogistically, although too briefly, to the industry that has been displayed in compiling this stout volume of nearly five hundred pages, in which Mr. Burnley tells how man has learned to protect himself from perils by sea and land, from the lightning and the pestilence, and from the perils caused by creations of his own ingenuity, ambition, and wickedness,—the railway, the coal-mine, and the weapon of war. Mr. Burnley ranges from hairbreadth escapes and heroic self-sacrifices to anmsthetics and the minutim of diet ; and it is to his credit, as proving his enthusiasm for his subject, that he finds romance in the still, small voice of the physician, as well as in the earthquake and the thunderstorm. It may be said that Mr. Burnley might have compressed his matter a little more than he has done. But we are disinclined to be hypercritical about so honest and creditable a performance. This volume would make an admirable gift-book of the better sort for a boy with a taste for adventure.
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