Public Life in England. By Philippe Daryl. Translated by Henry
Frith. (Routledge.)—M. Daryl's book is divided into three parts, treating respectively of "Literature and the Theatre," "Parliament and the City of London," and "The Queen, the Army and Navy, and the Law." He passes on all that he sees a sound and sensible judg-
meat ; and, on the whole, thinks quite as well of us as we deserve. He contrasts, for instance, English fiction with French, much to our advantage,—more so, in fact, than we have the right to swept. There is a considerable class of English novels, as is not unfrequently pointed out in these columns, which are quite as bad as the worst French fiction. M. Daryl ventures, we see, into the tangled maze of English rating, and even gives a table (which we do not profess to understand) showing the incidences of local taxation. All this per- plexity must seem utterly strange to the foreign observer ; but we bear it because we are told that any attempt to simplify brings in that dreaded bugbear, Centralisation.
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