_Old Man Bar_, are not the creatures of _Æsop's Fables_; they are the
characters in _Reynart the Fox_. The tricks, the cunning, the villany
of _Reynart_, unredeemed by aught except his affection for his wife
and family, are thoroughly amusing, and his ultimate success, and
increased prosperity; present a truer picture of actual life than
novels in which vice is visibly punished, and virtue patiently
rewarded. And once more I call to mind the latter days of _Becky's_
career.

Speaking of THACKERAY, Messrs. CASSELL & Co. have just brought out
a one-and-threepenny edition ("the threepence be demmed!") of the
_Yellowplush Papers_, with a dainty canary-coloured _Jeames_ on the
cover. At the same time the same firm produce, in the same form, _The
Last Days of Pompeii_, _The Last Days of Palmyra_, and _The Last of
the Mohicans_. Odd, that the first issue of this new series should
be nearly all "Lasts." _The Yellowplush Papers_ might have been kept
back, and _The Last of the Barons_ been substituted, just to make the
set of lasts perfect. The expression is suggestive of Messrs. CASSELL
going in for the shoemaking trade. _The Last Days of Palmyra_ I have
never read. "I will try it," says the bold Baron.

But what means this new style of printing on thin double sheets? One
advantage is that no cutting is required. If this form become the
fashion, better thus to bring out the _Utterbosh Series_, which shall
then escape the critics' hands,--no cutting being required. There are,
as those who use the paper-knife to these volumes will discover, in
this new issue of Messrs. CASSELL's, two blank pages for every two
printed ones, so that a new novel might be written in MS. inside the
printed one. The paper is good and clean to the touch; but I prefer
the stiff cover to the limp, "there's more backbone about it," says