17 OCTOBER 1868, Page 24

The Old Times and the New. (Chapman and Hall.)—This volume

contains the reminiscences of a Scotch laird, reaching back to about thirty years before the end of the last century, and continued up to within twenty years of our own time. The writer does not seem to have had the gift of collecting good stories ; we have not found one which seemed good enough to quote. But he was a shrewd observer of men and things, and his book is worth reading.