FRENCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY.
French Life in T.Arn and Ceuta,* By Hannah Lynch. (G. Newnee. 3s. Gd )—Miss Lynch tells us that she is neither French nor English (p. 24). (She is Irish ; but would a Breton or a Buiguudian say that he was not Ranch?) She wishes to hold the balance fair while she weighs the merits of the two nations, and, on the whole, she succeeds. Possibly the scale inclines towards one side. She has graver fault to find with our neighbours than with us. She can find nothing on this side the Channel so odious as the following :—" I have seen in the eyes of my Nationalist friends, devout Catholics and Conservatives
a gleam of joy when one night the late roars of the newspaper boys led us to fear that the President had been mur- dered. On a assassiml Emile,' they shouted, leaping to their feet, and flinging down their cards." Nor is there anything here to match the dismal picture which Miss Lynch draws of the state of things in the French Army. Of course all our author's chapters, indeed most of them, are not occupied with grave sub- jects. She gives pleasant pictures of life and manners, and is always entertaining or instructive, or both. "The English are admirable ; the French are lovable," is as good a summing-up of her praises as we can find.
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