_The Bed-Book of Happiness_ is a "Colligation or Assemblage of Cheerful Writings," colligated by Mr. HAROLD BEGBIE, and published by Messrs. HODDER AND STOUGHTON. It is a second edition, entitled the Red-Cross Edition, and it offers itself as an anodyne for the pain and boredom of wounded heroes. Said heroes, of average British pattern, would, I think, receive a nasty shock on reading the title and might be tempted to thrust the volume privily away without more ado. But they need do no such thing; it is nothing like so bad as that. On the contrary it is stuffed with most excellent matter for the perceptive, in doses not long enough to tire and with sufficient variety to stimulate. Old favourites from HOOD and CALVERLEY; an odd Ingoldsby or two; whimsicality from SAMUEL BUTLER; absurdities from that other SAMUEL (CLEMENS); growls from that greatest of the tribe, JOHNSON; cheeriness from that best of poets and schoolmasters, T. E. BROWN; a little STERNE, a little DICKENS, a little THACKERAY; _Percy Anecdotes_ and snippets from GRONOW; translated excerpts from those delightful allies, DAUDET, SAINT-BEUVE, ANATOLE FRANCE; and so forth and on. Of course no two colligators of bed-books could agree upon their choice, but I do think Mr. BEGBIE might have bagged a little from R. L. S. That omission and the deplorable title are my chief grievances. It is a sound point that there is no unwholesome invalidy tone about this seasonable re-issue with additions. Though I enjoyed _Broken Shackles_ (METHUEN) in a mild degree, I hardly think that Mr. JOHN OXENHAM has here given us of his best. So little do I think this that I am the prey of a suspicion--probably quite unfounded--that the tale is either early work, or has been hastily put together since the beginning of August. Anyhow, it's about a young man named _de Valle_, an officer in the Eastern Army of France, who is married but lives apart from his wife. The time is the winter of 1870, and when the great surrender comes, and the army is forced over into Switzerland, _de Valle_ is so sick of military muddles that he determines to settle down as a Swiss civilian and never go back any more. This (fortune helping him) he is enabled to do. He changes his name to _Duval_, and starts the simpler life with some pleasant folk who run a saw-mill in the Brunnen Thal. He even goes so far as to marry the maid of the mill. Which was rash of him, since he was still legally tied to his French wife, and (in fiction at least) the course of bigamy never did run smooth. Inevitably, therefore, not only did he encounter his wife again, coming out of the casino at Interlaken (she too has not been idle, having meanwhile married a Russian Prince), but the villain of the story also saw them both, and looked to make a good thing by it. But you know how quick and deep the Aar runs at Interlaken? _Duval_ accordingly pushed the inconvenient blackmailer into the water, and everyone, with this exception, lived happy.