So charming, after long years of parting, to come again on _Mr. Micawber_! Of all things, he has been writing an account of _The Life and Adventures of Thomas Edison_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS). The book purports to be the joint work of W. K. L. DICKSON and ANTONIA DICKSON. But that is only his modesty. The literary style is unmistakable. "Released from the swaddling clothes of error and superstition," no one but _Mr. M._ could have written, "the inherent virility of man has reasserted itself, and to the untrammelled vision and ripened energies of the scientist the arcana of nature have been gradually disclosed." "EDISON'S literary proclivities," he adds, in a sentence that recalls struggles in the house in Windsor Terrace, City Road, where _David Copperfield_ was a lodger, "were seriously hampered by the collapse of the family fortunes, and the early necessity of gaining his own living. Despite his paucity of years, and the practical claims which life had already imposed, EDISON devoted every spare moment to the improvement of his mind, and profited to the utmost by the wise and gentle tuition of his mother." My Baronite can almost hear _Mr. Micawber's_ voice choked by a sob as he declaimed this last sentence. Fortunately (or unfortunately) _Mr. Micawber_ does not last long. After the first chapter his hand is rarely seen, he probably, the God of Day gone down upon him, having been carried to the King's Bench prison. For the rest, the book is an admirable account of one of the most marvellous lives the world has known. Much of it is told in EDISON'S own words, conveying simple records of magic achievements. The book, luxuriously printed on thick glazed paper, is adorned by innumerable sketches and portraits, illustrating the life and work of the Wizard of the Nineteenth Century. B. DE B.-W. * * * * * FIRST IMPRESSIONS. [Illustration: Cook's Tour de Force.] Florence is undoubtedly one of the best places in the world for studying pictures. Resolve to visit the Pitti Palace. Now I shall see something like a palace--the home of the MEDICI, adorned with all the beauty of architecture and sculpture which they loved so well! No monotonous, painted barrack like Buckingham Palace, no shabby brick house like St. James's. And now I shall see a collection of pictures worthily housed in a magnificent building! No contemptible piece of architecture like our National Gallery, where you fall over the staircase directly you go in at the door, and where, when you have recovered yourself, you find three staircases, facing you like the heads of Cerberus at another entrance, and always go up the wrong one, and have to come down again and clamber up another before you find what you want. Even then, if you seek the watercolours of the greatest English landscape painter, you must go down yet another staircase into the cellar.