and the story ends ineffectually. To say of a
dress that 'it was rather under than over adorned' is not very pleasing
English, and such a phrase as 'almost always, but by no means
invariably,' is quite detestable. Still we must not expect the master of
the scalpel to be the master of the stilus as well. All But is a very
charming tale, and the sketches of village life are quite admirable. We
recommend it to all who are tired of the productions of Mr. Hugh Conway's
dreadful disciples.

(1) 'Twixt Love and Duty: A Novel. By Tighe Hopkins. (Chatto and
Windus.)

(2) Jenny Jennet: A Tale Without a Murder. By A. Gallenga. (Chapman and
Hall.)

(3) A Life's Mistake: A Novel. By Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron. (Ward and
Downey.)

(4) J. S.; or, Trivialities: A Novel. By Edward Oliver
Pleydell-Bouverie. (Griffith, Farren and Co.)

(5) All But: A Chronicle of Laxenford Life. By Pen Oliver, F.R.C.S.
(Kegan Paul.)

A LITERARY PILGRIM

(Pall Mall Gazette, April 17, 1886.)

Antiquarian books, as a rule, are extremely dull reading. They give us
facts without form, science without style, and learning without life. An
exception, however, must be made for M. Gaston Boissier's Promenades
Archeologiques. M. Boissier is a most pleasant and picturesque writer,
and is really able to give his readers useful information without ever
boring them, an accomplishment which is entirely unknown in Germany, and
in England is extremely rare.

The first essay in his book is on the probable site of Horace's country-
house, a subject that has interested many scholars from the Renaissance
down to our own day. M. Boissier, following the investigations of Signor
Rosa, places it on a little hill over-looking the Licenza, and his theory
has a great deal to recommend it. The plough still turns up on the spot
the bricks and tiles of an old Roman villa; a spring of clear water, like
that of which the poet so often sang, 'breaks babbling from the hollow
rock,' and is still called by the peasants Fonte dell' Oratini, some
faint echo possibly of the singer's name; the view from the hill is just
what is described in the epistles, 'Continui montes nisi dissocientur
opaca valle'; hard by is the site of the ruined temple of Vacuna, where
Horace tells us he wrote one of his poems, and the local rustics still go
to Varia (Vicovaro) on market days as they used to do when the graceful
Roman lyrist sauntered through his vines and played at being