AN AMERICAN HUMORIST.* MR. WARNER belongs to a school of

American humorists which differs from such writers as Artenaus Ward, Bret Harts, and the

4' Sauntering& By Charles 1). Warner. 1872. Beek-log Studies. By Charles D. 1873. Boston: James B. Osgood and Co. London : Triibner and Co.

like, pretty much as the new comedy of Athens differed from the old. Nothing could be more quiet and refined than their way of making fun. It moves, indeed, very hearty laughter—we were ourselves roused to the sense of Mr. Warner's exceeding merits by finding ourselves bursting out now and again as we sat alone reading one of his books—but so does many a joker who never moves a muscle of his face, and here, too, there is nothing like a grin, a contortion, or au antic. More enjoyable books than the two which we name at the foot of this column we have seldom read, and of "My Summer in a Garden" we retain a recollection equally pleasant, not unmingled with a certain self- reproachful feeling of an intention never carried out—too often the case with such intentions—of making it the subject of a detailed criticism. It is not easy to find a comparison for Mr. Warner. Sometimes he is like Charles Lamb. 'fake this, for instance, out of the "Misapprehensions Corrected," which forms a sort of preface to Saunterings :—

" I have listened in my time with more or less pleasure to very rollicking songs about the sea, the flashing brine, the spray and the tempest's roar, the wet sheet and the flowing sea, a life ou the ocean wave, and all the rest of it. To paraphrase a land proverb, let me write the songs of the sea, and I care not who goes to sea and sings 'em. A square yard of solid ground is worth miles of the pitching, turbulent stuff. Its inability to stand still for a second is the plague of it."

Very often he is like Sir Arthur Helps, or rather, as Sir Arthur Helps is many-sided, claiming as his own the specialities of the, half-dozen characters whom he makes talk together so well, especially like to Sir John Ellesmere. Banter and paradox, always handled with cleverness and subtlety ; an active fancy that sometimes rises into imagination or pathos, irony that is never bitter, and sarcasm that is never savage ; these, and with them what we might call scorn, if scorn were not mostly ungentle, of all that is uncultured, of shoddy aristocrats, nouveaux riches, and the like, may be found in Mr. Warner's books, as they may be found in Hawthorne, in Holmes, and others whose names we might mention.

Saunterings is nothing but a series of recollections of European travel. Mr. Warner did not go to any out-of-the-way places, was content, on the contrary, to visit, or anyhow to write about, the most frequented scenes,—Munich, for instance, Rome, Naples, and the like ; but it is amazing how fresh and bright his sketches are. He laughs at the oddities which he meets in the most good- humoured, infectious way, laughs at the English, we are bound to.

say, especially. Indeed, if there is ever a shade of spite in his satire, it is when he is ridiculing 113, though it is some comfort to-

find that, meanly as he may think of us, he has the highest opinion of our landscapes and of our fare. "Leaving out Switzer- land," he says, " I have seen nothing in that beauty (the beauty

of Continental scenery) which satisfies the eye and wins the -heart to compare with England in Spring. When we annex it to our sprawling country, which lies out of doors in so many climates, it

will make a charming retreat for us in May arid June,—a sort of garden of delight, whence we shall draw our May butter and our June roses. It will only be necessary to put it under glass to make it pleasant the year round." But it must be allowed that his laughter is, on the whole, fairly impartial. He makes excellent fun out of every available subject, not, as do some of his couutry- men, out of every subject, available or not (Mark Twain cau be quite as jocose about Adam as about any of Adam's descend- ants), as, for instance, out of the German passion for soldiering, out of the guides whom he bamboozles by offering to guide them for something less than the sum which they ask, and out of Italian beggars, these last being " done " in a fashion so delightful and apparently so effective that we must transcribe it for the benefit of our readers. He has been complaining that he cannot under- stand the Austrian currency :—

"During the day I get my pockets full of coppers, which are very con- venient to take in change, hut appear to have a very slight purcha,ing power in Austria even, and none at all elsewhere, and the only us., of which I have found is to give Italian beggars. One of the pieces satisfies a beggar when it drops into his hat ; and then it detains him long enough in the examination of it. so that your carriage has time to get so far away that his renewed pursuit is usually unavailing."

At times he can give us charming bits of description. Here is one, under the title of "Sea and Shore " :*—

" It is not always easy, when one stands upon the highlands which encircle the Piano di Sorrento, in some conditions of the atmosphere, to toll where the sea ends, and the sky begins. It seems practicable, at such times, for one to take ship, and sail up into heaven. I have often, indeed, seen whits sails climbing up there, and fishing-boats, at secure anchor I suppose, riding apparently like balloons in the hazy air. Sea. and air and land hero are all kin, I suspect, and have certain immaterial qualities in common. The contours of the shores and the outlines of the hills are as graceful as the mobile waves ; and if there is anywhere ruggedness and sharpness, the atmosphere throws a friendly veil over it, and tones all that is inharmonious into the repose of beauty. The .atmosphere is really something more than a medium: it is a drapery, -woven, one could affirm, with colors, or dipped in Oriental dyes. One might account thus for the prismatic colors I have often seen on the horizon at noon, when the sun was pouring down floods of clear, golden light. The simple light here, if one could ever represent by pen, pencil, or brush, would draw the world hither to bathe in it. It is not thin sunshine, but a royal profusion, a golden substance, a transforming .quality, a vesture of splendour for all these Mediterranean shores. The most comprehensive idea of Sorrento and the great plain on which it stands, embedded almost out of sight in foliage, we obtained one day from our boat, as we put out round the Capo di Sorronto, and stood away for Capri. There was not wind enough for sails; but there were chopping waves, and swell enough to toss us about, and to produce bright flashes of light far out at sea. The red-shirted rowers silently bent to their long sweeps; and I lay in the tossing bow, and studied the high, receding shore. The picture is simple,—a precipice of rock 'or earth, faced with masonry in spots, almost of uniform height from point to point of the little bay, except where a deep gorge has split the rock, and comes to the sea, forming a cove, where a cluster of rude buildings is likely to gather. Along the precipice, which now juts and now recedes a little, are villas, hotels, old convents, gardens, and groves. I can see steps and galleries cut in the face of the cliff, and caves and caverns, natural and artificial; for one can cut this tufa with a knife ; and it would hardly seem preposterous to attempt to dig out a -cool, roomy mansion in this rocky front with a spade."

Altogether, if our readers will trust us, they cannot spend an hour or so more pleasantly than in " sauntering " with Mr. Warner.

Or if they want something appropriate to winter, let them take .up Back-log Studies. A "back-log," we must explain, is the massive piece of wood, the pi&T de resistance, so to speak, which is put at the back of a wood fire. The " Studies " open with an -eloquent plea, which to us here, with no woods to speak of and -coals at famine prices, is even cruelly interesting, for open fires. Mr. Warner has been complaining that people change houses so frequently and so lightly, and live so often in houses that don't .suit them, and he goes on :— "Am I mistaken in supposing that this is owing to the discontinuance of big chimneys, with wide fireplaces in them ? How can a person be attached to a house that has no centre of attraction, no soul in it, in the visible form of a glowing fire, and a warm chimney, like the heart in the body ? When you think of the old homestead, if you ever do, your thoughts go straight to the wide chimney and its burning logs. No wonder that you are ready to move from one fireplaceless house into .another. But you have something just as good, you say. Yes, I have heard of it. This age, which imitates everything, even to the virtues of our ancestors, has invented a fireplace, with artificial iron, or composi- tion logs in it. hacked and painted, in which gas is burned, so that it has the appearance of a wood fire. This seems to me blasphemy. Do you think a cat would lie down before it? Can you poke it ? If you can't poke it, it is a fraud. To poke a wood fire is more solid enjoyment than almost anything else in the world. The crowning human virtue in a man is to let his wife poke the fire. I do not know how any virtue whatever is possible over an imitation gas log. What a sense of insin- cerity the family must have, if they indulge in the hypocrisy of gather- ing about it. With this centre of untruthfulness, what must the life in the family be ? Perhaps the father will be living at the rate of ten thousand a year on a salary of four thousand ; perhaps the mother more beautiful and younger than her beautified daughters, will rouge ; per- haps the young ladies will make waxwork. A cynic might suggest as the motto of modern life this simple legend, 'Just as good as the real.' But I am not a cynic, and I hope for the rekindling of wood fires, and a return of the beautiful home light from them. If a wood fire is a luxury, it is cheaper than many in which we indulge without thought, and cheaper than the visits of a doctor, made necessary by the want of ventilation of the house. Not that I have anything against doctors ; I only wish, after they have been to see us in a way that seems so friendly, they had nothing against us."

Round this open fire the author, who calls himself the "Fire- Tender," his wife, and certain friends talk together in the pleasantest fashion, Mr. Warner being one of the few -who know how to manage a conversation. Of that, of course, no extracts that we can give will afford an idea. Indeed, it is very difficult to do justice by extracts to a book of this kind, where the humour is pretty evenly distributed, and there is nothing very much superior to the rest. One turns over page after page of essays, which we read with a quiet, con- tinuous delight, and fear to select, lest our readers should say, -" I see nothing very particular here." Probably there is nothing 4, very particular ;" but then there is plenty more like it, and that is very much more to the purpose. At all events, we shall risk :a passage, and with it finally commend Mr. Warner to our readers :— "It makes one homesick in this world to think that there are so many rare people he can never know ; and so many excellent people that scarcely any one will know, in fact. One discovers a friend by chance, and cannot but feel regret that twenty or thirty years of life maybe have been spent without the least knowledge of him. When he is once known' through him opening is made into another little world, into a circle of culture and loving hearts and enthusiasm in a dozen congenial pursuits, and prejudices perhaps. How instantly and easily the bachelor doubles his world when he marries, and enters into the unknown fellowship of the to him continually increasing company which is known in popular language as 'all his wife's relations.' Near at hand daily, no doubt, are those worth knowing intimately, if one had the time and the opportunity. And when one travels he sees what a vast material there is for society and friendship, of which he can never avail himself. Car-load after car-load of summer travel goes by one at any railway station, out of which he is sure he could choose a score of life- long friends, if the conductor would introduce him. There are faces of refinement, of quick wit, of sympathetic kindness,—interesting people, travelled people, entertaining people,—as you would say in Boston, nice people you would admire to know,' whom you constantly meet and pass without a sign of recognition, many of whom are no doubt your long-lost brothers and sisters. You can see that they also have their worlds and their interests, and they probably know a great many 'nice' people. The matter of personal liking and attachment is a good deal due to the mere fortune of association. More fast friendships and pleasant acquaintanceships are formed on the Atlantic steamships between those who would have been only indifferent acquaintances elsewhere, than one would think possible on a voyage which naturally makes one as selfish as he is indifferent to his personal appearance. The Atlantic is the only power on earth I know that can make a woman indifferent to her personal appearance."