a most interesting chapter on marriage-made men, and though he dissents, and we think rightly, from the view recently put forward by a lady or two on the Women’s Rights platform that Solomon owed all his wisdom to the number of his wives, still he appeals to Bismarck, John Stuart Mill, Mahommed and Lord Beaconsfield, as instances of men whose success can be traced to the influence of the women they married.  Archbishop Whately once defined woman as ’a creature that does not reason and pokes the fire from the top,’ but since his day the higher education of women has considerably altered their position.  Women have always had an emotional sympathy with those they love; Girton and Newnham have rendered intellectual sympathy also possible.  In our day it is best for a man to be married, and men must give up the tyranny in married life which was once so dear to them, and which, we are afraid, lingers still, here and there.

‘Do you wish to be my wife, Mabel?’ said a little boy.

‘Yes,’ incautiously answered Mabel.

‘Then pull off my boots.’

On marriage vows our author has, too, very sensible views and very amusing stories.  He tells of a nervous bridegroom who, confusing the baptismal and marriage ceremonies, replied when asked if he consented to take the bride for his wife:  ‘I renounce them all’; of a Hampshire rustic who, when giving the ring, said solemnly to the bride:  ’With my body I thee wash up, and with all my hurdle goods I thee and thou’; of another who, when asked whether he would take his partner to be his wedded wife, replied with shameful indecision:  ‘Yes, I’m willin’; but I’d a sight rather have her sister’; and of a Scotch lady who, on the occasion of her daughter’s wedding, was asked by an old friend whether she might congratulate her on the event, and answered:  ’Yes, yes, upon the whole it is very satisfactory; it is true Jeannie hates her gudeman, but then there’s always a something!’ Indeed, the good stories contained in this book are quite endless and make it very pleasant reading, while the good advice is on all points admirable.

Most young married people nowadays start in life with a dreadful collection of ormolu inkstands covered with sham onyxes, or with a perfect museum of salt-cellars.  We strongly recommend this book as one of the best of wedding presents.  It is a complete handbook to an earthly Paradise, and its author may be regarded as the Murray of matrimony and the Baedeker of bliss.

How to be Happy though Married:  Being a Handbook to Marriage.  By a Graduate in the University of Matrimony. (T.  Fisher Unwin.)

HALF-HOURS WITH THE WORST AUTHORS

(Pall Mall Gazette, January 15, 1886.)

I am very much pleased to see that you are beginning to call attention to the extremely slipshod and careless style of our ordinary magazine-writers.  Will you allow me to refer your readers to an article on Borrow, in the current number of Macmillan, which exemplifies very clearly the truth of your remarks?  The author of the article is Mr. George Saintsbury, a gentleman who has recently written a book on Prose Style, and here are some specimens of the prose of the future according to the systeme Saintsbury: