THE VESTIBULE 



story, but in the name of peace and quietness, how 

 many bands were there who tried to save Charles L, 

 and in how many different ways was it to be done ? " 



Margueritte, p. and V. — The Disaster. "Not 

 only dull, but absolutely unreadable. Are all French- 

 men mad ? Their writers never seem to tire of trying 

 to prove it." 



Mason and Lang. — Parson Kelly. " Mr. Mason 

 did much better work alone." 



MoNCRiEFF, F. — The X Jewel. "A most incon- 

 sequential attempt at a romance. You finish won- 

 dering what in the world the author has been trying 

 to do." 



MuNRO, Neil. — John Splendid. "A Scotch story 

 with the descriptions as well as the conversations in 

 dialect. Think of it ! 'No thruadh ! ' but fortune was 

 a 'dour jade' when this 'sculduddry tale' was put in 

 my ' silvered loof.' It is ' a long strath ' and "■ stoury 

 marching,' more than a ' meridian daunder,' through its 

 pages, and oh ! but ' it is heartsome,' here at the ' cruisie 

 light ' of my ' tack house ' (' a trig little edifice, not a 

 bigging, but snugly thacked and windowed,' in a 'pleas- 

 ance walled by whin '), to feel that I have emptied the 

 author's ' girnel and toomed his last basin.' Let this 

 be a ' prickle at the skin ' of those who would follow 

 after ; let them know that ' here is drool, and the smell 

 of mort cloth,' 'a smittal plague ;' though I am willing 

 to acknowledge at the same time that ' I never heard 

 that a put on gant was smittal,' for every one knows 

 that if a gant was at all smittal it could not be put on. 



"I am neither ' pernicketty ' nor 'perjink' about my 

 summer reading, but you may notch it on the ' yett ' 

 that though the author be a ' gleg man ' and ' have repu- 

 6 8i 



