I 70 Revira's of Books great cannon in the Castle, Queen Elizabeth's pocket pistol they called it, cast in 1544 and capable, it was said, of carrying a twelve-pound ball for seven miles, and many things besides, entertaining if nothing more. The book should be welcome to all lovers of olden time. Fivi/i Capetown to Ladysmith : an Unfinished Record of the South African War. By G. W. Steevens, edited by Vernon Blackburn. (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1900, pp. 19S.) The series of letters from South Africa which Mr. Steevens was writing for the London Dtii/v Mail was abruptly closed by his death last January. The frag- ment of correspondence has been made into a book, with a supplemen- tary chapter containing a sketch of Mr. Steevens's life and an estimate of his character and abilities by Mr. Blackburn. Mr. Blackburn's part is an ill-digested piece of composition. The letters themselves possess a twofold interest : they are another specimen of the work of a young journalist of great promise ; they give some unusually vivid impressions of the scenes in South Africa at the outbreak of the war. Mr. Steevens enters into no discussion of the causes of the conflict or the rights of either side : he tells simply what he sees and hears on the way from Capetown to Lady- smith, with a detour, so to speak, for the battle of Elandslaagte. The book inevitably suffers because the editor was not free to select and con- nect the letters as Mr. Steevens himself might have done ; nevertheless it offers a number of brilliant descriptions and bits of narrative. The ac- count of the charge at Elandslaagte, for example (pp. 62), is as rapid in movement as the charge itself. Stevenson and Kipling have taught us how writing of this sort should be done ; and Mr. Steevens was an apt pupil. Paris as Seen and Described by Famous Writers. Edited and trans- lated by Esther Singleton. (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1900, pp. xiv, 397.) This collection of articles and illustrations may probably be ranked with the books which the International Exposition has called out. The publishers state that its purpose is to supplement the guide- book, and its editor has followed the usual plan of guide-books and nar- ratives of travel. The text is arranged under three heads corresponding with the three larger divisions of Paris — the Cite, Left Bank and Right Bank — and the order under each head is topographical, proceeding quite regularly from east to west ; so that any one who prefers literary descrip- tion to mere statement of facts would find here an excellent substitute for his Baedeker or Joanne. English and French writers are quite equally represented in the various chapters, though the French excel in importance and length. Victor Hugo and Louis Blanc both contribute sketches of the older town, while Thackeray, Balzac, George Sand, Sophia Beale, Arsene Houssaye, Hare, Charles Dickens, Jr. , Zola, Theodore de Banville and Fournier are included among those authors who treat of the modern city. Under their guidance we visit churches, palaces, museums, mingle with the crowds
