CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Great Army : Sketches of Life and Character in a Thames-side District. By the "River-side Visitor." 2 vols. (Daldy and Isbister.) —Some readers vill probably smile when we say that we find a special difficulty in reviewing this book, because we know nothing of its subject ; or anyhow, do not know the hundredth part of what the author knows. "Every inch of the district," he tells us, in his brief and modest preface, "is as familiar to me as the room in which I write." But this we can say with perfect sincerity and confidence, that the book is one of extra- ordinary interest; that there is not a trace of exaggeration, or cant, or affectation of any kind about it ; that everything is told in the simplest and most natural manner, and in short, that if it is not a description of actual facts and living persons, as, indeed, we firmly believe it to be, it is ap great a masterpiece of fiction as Defoe's "Plague of London." The Great Army—and our sole criticism on the book shall be on the obscurity of the title—is a description of various classes and persons among the vast poor population of the Eastern end of London.
The first chapter is given to a short life of "Captain Rust," a 'long-shore, boy, who had earned for himself his title by his extraordinary superiority in 'cuteness over his fellows ; the second to "Fairy Armstrong," the sweetest and prettiest of little girls, who got her name from acting as a fairy in a pantomime, and whose story is inexpressibly sad, as, indeed, too many of these stories are. Then comes "Button-hole Row," so called from its being the dwelling-place of a number of poor creatures who earn their living by making button-holes, at some rate which would be ridiculous, if it had not so painful a significance. Imagine "two thou- sand eight hundred and eighty button-holes to earn ten shillings !" A sequel to this paper may be found farther on in the same volume in "The Button-hole Queen," a very touching story indeed. There is not wanting plenty of the amusing in the book, though this, too, has always a certain touch of sadness about it. There is the account of "Shiny Smith," for instance, with his many ingenious devices for "raising the wind," not the least acute being the "loan office," which exists not by lending money, of which, indeed, it possesses none, but by exacting fees for inquiries. But the book cannot be described, it must be read, and if it does nothing else—and it ought to do much—it will, at least, give the upper half of the world some notion as to bow the lower half lives.
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