Books and Men. By Agnes Replier. (Houghton and Co., Boston,
U.S.A., and New York.)—Miss Replier has certainly no little skill in the art of essay-writing, an art which, indeed, is cultivated, we fancy, with more success on the other side of the Atlantic than on this. "Children, Past and Present," for instance, is a most amusing contrast between the manners of the past generation and those of our own, as regards the relation of the young to the old. But the essayist dwells more on the past than on the present. The American child of to-day is a theme to which she only dares to allude ; but her reticence is very expressive. In " What Children Read," she speaks her mind about literature of " The Wide, Wide World" kind. Happily, we are still a little frivolous in this country ; the young person who " considers it her mission in life to convert her grandparents " is not a favourite here. The other essays are "On the Benefits of Superstition," "The Decay of Sentiment," "Curiosities of Criticism," " Some Aspects of Pes- simism," and " The Cavalier." All are well worth reading, for they are both witty and wise.
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