Now to my books. Gadzooks, what's here? Another volume of _Obiter Dicta?_ By one author this time, for if my memory fails me not, the previous little book was writ by two scribes. Well, no matter--or rather lots of matter--and by AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, who represents _Obiter_ and _Dicta_ too. With an unclassical false quantity anyone who so chooses to unscholarise himself, can speak of him as the _O'Biter_, so sharp and pungent are some of his remarks. Ah! here is something on LAMB. For me, quoth the Baron, LAMB is always in season, serve up the dish with what trimmings you may, but, if you please, no sauce. Size and shape are the only things against friend _Obiter_. It is not what this sort of book ought to be, portable and potable, like the craftily qualified contents of a pocket-flask, refreshing on a tedious journey. Had _Obiter_ been the size of either _The Handy Volume Shakspeare_, or of Messrs. ROUTLEDGE'S Redbacks--both the Baron's prime favourites--the Baron would have been able to dip into it more frequently, as he would into that same pocket-flask aforementioned. "Next, please!" BLACKIE'S _Modern Cyclopedia_. Vol. VII., so we're getting along. I'll just cast my eye over it; one eye, not two, says the Baron, out of compliment to the Cyclops. This Volume deals with the letters "P," "R," "S," and any person wishing to master a few really interesting subjects for dinner conversation will read and learn up all about Procyon, Pizemysi, and Pyrheliometer, Quotelet, Quintal, and Quito, Regulus, Ramazan, Rheumatism, Rhynchops, Rum-Shrub, and Rupar, Samoyedes, Semiquaver, Sahjehanpur, Silket, Sinter, and Size. When it is known what a gay conversationalist he is, he may induce some one to put him up for a cheery Club, where he will be Blackie-balled. Still, by studying the Cyclopedia carefully, with a view to being ready with words for charades and dumb-crambo during the festive Christmas-tide, he may once again achieve a certain amount of popularity, on which, as on fresh laurels, he had better retire. "Next, please!" _How Stanley Wrote his Darkest Africa_. By Mr. E. MARSTON. A most interesting little book, published by SAMPSON LOW & Co., illustrated with excellent photographs, and with a couple of light easy sketches, by, I suppose, the Author, which makes the Baron regret that he didn't do more of them. "Buy it," says the Baron. The Baron recommends the perusal of this little book, if only to understand the full meaning of the old proverbial expression "Going on a wild-goose chase." The author is a wonderfully rapid-act traveller. He apparently can "run" round every principal city in Europe and see everything that's worth seeing in it in about an hour and a half at most. In this manner, and by not comprehending a word of the language wherever he is, or at all events only a very few of the words, he continues to pick up much curious information which probably would be novel to slower coaches than himself.