The Yorkshire Coast ; and the Cleveland Hills and Dales.
By John Leyland. With illustrations by Alfred Dawson and Lancelot Speed. (Seeley and Co.)—Englishmen, said Thomas Fuller, should be well acquainted with their own country before going over the threshold; and if the ordinary tourist did but know how exhaust- less is the interest and beauty of this island, he would not be so often tempted to leave it for foreign travel. Every book is to be welcomed that makes our home scenery and famous historical sites more familiar ; and Mr. Leyland's volume is written with judgment, good taste, and extensive knowledge. His pages are sufficiently attractive to please the general reader, and the rambler who follows in the author's footsteps could not have a more instructive companion. To our thinking, the least interesting features of the Yorkshire coast are its fashionable watering-places. Filey, apart from its Brig and sands, has few attractions ; and if Scarborough has many for the lovers of amusement, the lover of Nature will not be sorry to escape from it. The picturesque old town of Whitby has not lost its charm ; but the new town, dedicated to fashion and respectability, is devoid of beauty, and has its sea- front spoilt by hideous iron railings which enclose the subscrip- tion gardens. Saltburn may be "one of the most attractive of Yorkshire watering-places," but, like the towns we have men- tioned, it has its fashionable drawbacks, for the lower end of Saltburn Glen has been turned into gardens which contain a theatre and concert-room, tennis-lawns, a band-stand, and "a grotto in the guise of a temple." Happily the traveller in York- Shire can escape very readily from these marks of civilisation and enjoy the chief features of its scenery, its woodland glens and rushing streams, and lofty, lonely moorlands ; its noble hills, and rivers winding through rocky clefts ; and its abbeys, which, like Rievaulx, lie in secluded nooks of pastoral loveliness. Mr. Leyland's work. is not a guide-book, but the tourist who carries it with him to the Cleveland Hills will find that it is of constant and friendly service. The illustrations of the volume add considerably to its value, and our sole regret is that they are not more numerous.
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