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