Light and airy are the _Soap Bubble Stories_ blown by FANNY BARRY through her pen-pipe. Wonder is that, in this advertising age, she didn't dedicate them to PEARS.
The Baron's Assistant has a word to say about the Diaries for this next year. If you want a useful Diary, the B. A. would recommend the "Registered Back-loop Pocket Diary," got up, like a sportsman, in the best of leathers by JOHN WALKER & Co., or, "as Friend JOHNNIE observes," HENRY IRVING would say--"to put it briefly, 'WALKER--London.'"
The Baron has recently received two books, not strictly speaking "Christmas Books," though they are, _et cela va sans dire_, books published at Christmas-tide, the one practical and parliamentary, the other philosophical and phenomenal; the former dedicated to the Right Honourable ARTHUR BALFOUR by LUCY, and the latter dedicated to Lord HALIFAX by LILLY. Two prettier names for authors, or rather, to judge of the writers' sex by the sound of the names, for authoresses, could not well be chosen. But authors masculine they are, the pair of them. Mr. W. S. LILLY is to be congratulated on his very taking title, _The Great Enigma_, and all classes of readers will be glad to be informed that it has nothing whatever to do with the Irish Question. If any reader expects to find the Great Enigma solved by the LILLY who toils and spins, then he must not be surprised if the author says to him in effect, "_Davus sum, non Oedipus._"
From _A Diary of the Salisbury Parliament_, by Mr. H. LUCY, anyone can quaff or sip, just as his thirst for Parliamentary knowledge may be feverish or moderate, but healthy. It is thoroughly interesting, most amusing, and really valuable for reference withal. 'Tis written, too, in so impartial a spirit, that it would be difficult to gather from these pages to which political Party the Diarist belongs, but for his exuberant eulogy of the wonderful Grand Old Man. Mr. LUCY is the Parliamentary PEPYS. The sketches are by an Old Parliamentary Hand, yclept HARRY FURNISS, and assist the reader unfamiliar with the House of Commons to form a pretty accurate idea of the men who are, and of the men who were, and what they wear, and how they wear.
The most interesting part of JAMES PAYN'S latest novel, _A Stumble on the Threshold_, to Cambridge men or Camford men (for in this story the names are synonymous), will be the small-beer chronicle of small College life in their University some thirty years ago. The slang phrases of that remote period are perhaps somewhat confused with those of a more modern time, just as an old Dutch Master will introduce his own native town and the costume of his fellow-countrymen into a picture representing some great Scriptural subject, thus bringing it, so to speak, up to date, and giving us an artistic realisation of what may be concisely termed "the historic present." In the second volume (this novel is complete in two volumes) the sketches of river-life, including a delightful one of the old lock-keeper, are refreshingly breezy. The story, slight in itself, is skilfully worked out; and the only disappointing part of it--that is, at least to the Baron's thinking--is, that the villain of the earlier part of the tale does not turn up again as the real culprit, though the Baron is certain that every reader must expect him to do so, and must feel quite sure that, in spite of the author's reticence on the subject, it was _he_ who really committed the murder, and escaped even the author's detection, unless, out of sheer soft-heartedness towards the puppets of his own creation, JAMES PAYN knowingly let him off at the last moment. The judicial portion of the novel, including the scene in the Coroner's court, is just what would have been expected from an impartial "J.P."