Memoirs of Anna M. W. Pickering. Edited by her Son,
Spencer Pickering, F.R.S. (Hodder and Stoughton. 16s. net.)—Anna Pickering was the eldest child of John Spencer Stanhope and Elizabeth Coke (daughter of Mr. Coke of Holkham, created Earl of Leicester in 1837). She married P. A. Pickering, Q.C., and died in 1901. During her twenty-five years of widowhood she wrote the family records here published. The volume is, to our mind, overlarge, a frequent complaint in the mouths of critics, but not wholly unjustified when there are five hundred and fifty- four of the largest-sized octavo pages. If filial piety could only see that it is likely to do most justice by a discreet choice ! For the family all ; for the world the best, or, we should rather say, the most generally interesting. Of the stories there is an em- barrassing variety and multitude. One of the famous people that Mrs. Pickering came across was Joseph Wolff, and she gives a curious picture of him. Here is a story of his early youth. He was walking with the satirist Johannes Falk, and met Goethe. "That is Goethe," said the lad. "I have read Egmont,' and I feel convinced that 'only a man with such a countenance could have written it." Falk introduced him to the poet, saying : "This lad wants to become a Christian, but I advise him to remain a Jew, in which case he will become a celebrated Jew." "Young man," said Goethe, "follow the bent of your own mind." There is a very pleasing account of Queen Adelaide, one of the most benevolent of mankind. She used to send " shiploads " of invalids to Madeira. Queen Victoria naturally is often spoken of, and always with admiration. And then, for we have no little variety, we hear of Madame Tussaud. Some of our readers may have seen her as she eat taking the money at the door of the old gallery. She died in 1851, at the age of ninety. She had taken a cast of the face of Marat as he lay still bleeding from the dagger of Charlotte Corday. She had the same task with the heads of Charlotte herself and the Princesse de Lamballe. And she had received an elegant compliment from Robespierre. She slipped on the stairs of the Bastille, and Robespierre held out his hand to support her saying: "It would, indeed, have been a great pity if so young and pretty a patriot should have broken her neck in such a horrid place." How curious the change to taking the shillings at a show!
A HANDBOOK OF MODERN JAPAN.
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