CURRENT LITERATURE.
Reminiscences of an Adventurous Career at Home and the Antipodes. By Alexander Tolmer. 2 vols. (Sampson Low and Co.)—Mr. Telmer tells the story of his life from his birth down to 1853 in two volumes, which may be calculated to contain about three of the ordinary three. volumed novels. On the Australian continent, books appear, we believe, at the rate of about fifty a year, and a few hundred pages in excess are but of small account, when readers have a leisure so ample. Here, where fifty come out in the week, it is a serious matter. The excessive length of these volumes is the more injudicious, as Mr. Telmer wants to call attention to his own grievances. These are
some thirty years old, and we doubt whether any book would do much to redress them ; bat if any, it must be something terse and telling.. The best part of these reminiscences is that which concerns the author's services in the British Legion that fought for Donna Maria of Portugal. This contains some really amusing anecdotes,—the story, for instance, how Mr. Telmer and his comrades, being then besieged in Oporto, ingeniously contrived to turn an honest penny at the expense of the enemy. They used to provoke a cannonade from the enemy, by venturing into a cabbage field which was within the range of fire. They got the cabbages, which under the circum- stances were very useful, dodged the cannon-balls, and farther im- proved their rations by selling them for ninepence apiece, to be re- turned from the town batteries. Nobody, it seems, was ever hurt at this pleasant little game. But before we get half through the first volume, we are taken to Australia, and find the story become dis- tinctly tedious. Yet there are even here some things which, were they picked out of the mass, might well be worth telling. Of Mr. Tolmer's case we cannot pretend to judge. We can but mention thai he states it at length in his second volume, and prints the official documents which concern it.
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