The Belgravia Annual. Edited by H. E. Braddon.—M188 Braddon sends
out her shooting star well in advance of the usual Christmas- shower. The composition of those bodios is now pretty well known, and we find the usual elements in the apeeimon before us. There is the tale in which the hero makes a groat fool of himself, and that in which ho is amazingly clever and succossful ; the tale of horror, tho ghost story, the omits story, the simplo domestic narrative, de. These are all pretty good of their kind. Miss Braddon has probably learnt by this time to write stories like " Old Rudder- ford Hall "in her sleep. All the characters are as familiar as possible ; the impoverished old gentleman of the Old Hall, the nouveau riche in the Now, and the young people who contrive to bring them together by fall- ing in love. Still the author puts the bits of coloured glass into a clever little kaleidoscope and makes thom into pretty-looking patterns. Mrs. Marian Northcott, in " Tim Twinkloton's Twins," tells an amusing story, in whioh the "twins " and a baskot of "Chelmsford washing" are the principal characters; and Mr. Walter Thornbury is strongly comic in his extravaganza of "Dr. Doadshot and his Little Consignment." By far the best story in the book is "The Dreaded Guest," whore a surgeon rostoros to life a "subject," a coiner who had been unsuccessfully hanged at Newgato, and finds that ho has got a sort of Frankenstein on his hands. Mr. G A. Sala, detailing his sufferings from starvation on board the Columbia, American steamship, from New York to Cuba, is as amusing as usual. Much plate Ana nothing on it to eat' was, he found, the order of the day, recalling to him an anecdote of the "opinions of the Potawotande Indians during the rainy season." " ' Ain't you grate- ful for rain? ' sort the Minister to a Pot daring a storm. 'No, I ain't,' ses Pot ; 'I want less thunder and more beef.'" There is, we suppose, a good deal of entertainment of the "Christmas-book" sort before us just at this time, and we shall do well if we have nothing less digestible than the Belgravia Annual.
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