Days Spent on a Doge's Perm. By Margaret Symonds. (T.
Fisher Unwin.)—Somewhere about the beginning of the tenth ,century the Pisani migrated from Pisa to Venice. They rose to wealth and eminence in their adopted city, and were included in process of time in the nobility. Among other possessions, they acquired some land in the Lombard Plain, a certain Admorb Pisani having purchased it in the fifteenth century. As in the eighteenth century a Pisani became Doge, being at the same time owner of this land, it may be called a " Doge's Farm." The last Pisani left it to his widow, an English lady of very energetic temper and ways. To her Miss Symonde paid a visit ; of her rule, and of the place and the people on whom she exercises it, Miss Symonds gives us here a fascinating description, made yet more attractive by the reproduction of the author's own sketches, and of various photo- graphs of portraits and places with which the Countess Pisani supplied her. It would not be easy to give an adequate idea of the charm of the book. Everything is touched with a grace and akill which show us that here again literary power is an in- heritance. The great plain, daily threatened by the river, which flows between banks raised far above the level of the land ; the broad expanse of level redeemed from ugliness by its brilliant -colouring, the cattle with their large lustrous eyes, the little tree-. frogs with their vivid green,—these and other things, small and great, are given in the most graphic way. Most interesting of all, perhaps, is the Countess herself, who has achieved a most astonishing success, not only in restoring material prosperity to an estate which came into her hands almost ruined by neglect, but in winning the hearts of the people. Altogether, this is a most interesting book.
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