Literary Landmarks of London. By Laurence Hutton. (T. Fisher Unwin.)—Mr.
Hutton gives the information which he has here collected in alphabetical order, and without mach effort to invest it with literary attraction. This, perhaps, is quite right, considering the plan of the book. If the writer had dealt at all fully with either the character or the biography of the hundreds of literary persons whom he mentions, his very reasonable limits would soon have been exceeded. It is much to his credit that he resists the temptation. His object is to give topographical details, when these details connect the subjects of his brief notices with London ; and he very wisely does not go beyond this purpose. The work is of limited extent ; but it could not be done without a very considerable amount of research, and Mr. Hutton must be allowed the credit of having done it in a complete fashion. An instance of his manner of treat- ment may be given. He comes in the course of his work to the name of Laurence Sterne. Now, it would have been easy to say a great deal about Sterne, but Mr. Hutton keeps strictly to his subject. "Sterne," he says, "saw but little of London." In 1760 he lodged in Pall Mall for about tlule months. He occupied
in subsequent seasons various lodgings which cannot be identified. In 1768 he died at 41 Old Bond Street, "over the silk-bag shop." Whether the house now thus numbered is the real NH. 41 seems doubtful. He was buried in "the new burying-ground in Tyburn," from which, it is said, his body was stolen and sold to the professor of anatomy at Cambridge, in whose disecting-room it was recognised by a friend. Would it not be well, by the way, to throw this disused burial-ground open ?
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